


from the lower depths

by pistolgrip



Series: the universe in your hands [3]
Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Gran/Quatre, Background Song/Silva, Established Relationship, M/M, Memory Loss, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 79,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23290753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: Settled in the heart of a modest island, Six meets the skies at its fraying edges. He falls apart into pieces, and the disorder he sees in the shattered remains is given form through only two reflections: duty and love. Against time itself, what would remain of him at the end of the journey to become whole once more?All nights have an end, but the waking world was no reprieve from torment. When the depths of the night sky swallowed the guiding star, when the moon relinquished her throne, when the dawn rose to take her place—the sun's rebirth would break him down to his molecules, rebuilding him as a spectre of his past.
Relationships: Siete | Seofon/Six | Seox (Granblue Fantasy)
Series: the universe in your hands [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1342066
Comments: 45
Kudos: 97





	1. a single moment.

**Author's Note:**

> for maximum pain, please read _[second chances](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18582688/chapters/44051962)_ and _[sunrise, sunset](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990817/chapters/45094492)_ before this. there are a lot of little references in this fic to previous events that hurt a lot more/make more sense if you've read the other two!  
> also [_let your heart be light_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21973612) just for flavour, but not necessary.
> 
> (if you've ever seen me talk about a fic called "60s"—this is it!)

Six doesn't remember falling asleep, but he wakes from a nightmare to a knock on his cabin door, and he clenches his fists into the sheets to keep them from shaking. The curtains are open, and the sun is above the horizon, but the air is not yet hot. He must have been too tired to bother with anything more than falling into bed, even though Siete left him to rest while he steered the ship.

His shirt clings to his skin, damp with sweat. He struggles to control his breathing. "'M awake," he mumbles, rubbing the heels of his palm against his eyes.

Stars burst against his closed eyelids as Esser's voice comes through the door. "We're here, Six. Siete's finished making breakfast." She sounds submerged to Six's ringing ears, and he takes another shuddering breath until he feels steady enough to respond. Her calming cadence tempts him into sleeping again, but the creeping darkness lingers at the edge of his mind.

They don't have time for more of his weakness, and he can't continue making them wait for him. He shakes his head.

Since he started sharing a bed with Siete, he takes longer to become alert, expecting a pair of arms around his waist and a sleepy plea for him to stay for five minutes more. He rubs the goosebumps on his arm and clings to the memory of Siete's warmth to chase away the old doubts surfacing from that nightmare, a boundless and indescribable heat, eyes watching from everywhere, nails dragging across his skin—"Was he allowed to leave the helm to cook?" He sounds tinny to his own ears.

Esser, however, sounds closer now. He focuses on her presence, on her words, on the idea of Siete keeping them afloat. "Our ship is in proper condition, but hurry, lest he cause a scene before we invite the others."

"He'd look for any excuse to cause a scene," he mumbles more to himself. For a moment, free of the heaviness blanketing his thoughts, his fondness finds a home in every syllable. Stifling another yawn, he stretches, equips his weapons, and finds the outermost parts of his uniform that he discarded for his nap.

In a stroke of inspiration, Siete designed new uniforms for the Eternals late last year. Although Six accepted them with much less debate than the original from the time of recruit, he isn't grounded enough in the present world to find solace in marking himself as an Eternal, and he stares at the door of his cabin instead of the mirror as he changes.

He didn't want to give his nightmare form in the waking world through his thoughts, but this cape weighs too heavy on his shoulders; his and Siete's first anniversary is in one week, and still, he catapults each day between basking in this fleeting happiness and discarding all of his names to free Siete from the imposter he is. The cape drags behind him when he exits his room, but sunshine reflects off it and against the ship's halls, shimmering, and he straightens his cape so it sits as Siete intended on his shoulders.

Now with his back straight to support the weight of the cape, holding his head high follows naturally. The smell of breakfast drifts through the halls, and his heart lightens by the time he arrives at the cozy dining area of their ship, sighing to expel the last of the doubts cast by his impromptu nap as he settles beside Siete.

Without missing a beat, Siete frees a hand to curl around Six's waist, bringing him in to kiss the back of his ear. Six's shoulders slacken, and he leans into the action, rubbing his cheek against Siete's shoulder. Maybe the only thing he missed was the warmth after waking, no Siete beside him to bother him and drown him in love.

"Morning, sunshine." Siete sounds chipper, and with each second that passes by his side, his uncertainty from the vague horrors fade. "I'll finish up here, you two wanna bring Gran over here and see why he called us?"

Six hums in agreement. "Keep breakfast warm." From beside Siete, he grabs one apple for himself and one for Vyrn as a necessary sacrifice to keep his mask intact.

"Hey, don't get full before we eat," Siete whines, taking one from him. Six takes the opportunity when Siete leans over him to plant a kiss along his jaw before escaping from his grasp. While looking him in the eye, he splits the apple in half with defiance, leaving behind the other half.

Siete docked the Eternals' ship beside the Grandcypher, the sheer size of which never failed to strike awe into observers. Its side entrance opens for Six and Esser as they exit.

Gran and Lyria wait on the uppermost deck, their nervous energy unsettling against the nonstop flurry of activity that is their crew. "Uno sends his regrets that he couldn't come," Six starts. He searches for Vyrn, and when he doesn't find him, he bites into the half of the apple he's carrying to keep himself awake. "The one among us most versed in business, and he could not attend."

"It's fine," Gran says, his smile straining. "Arawo's been dealing with more than messed-up trade routes, anyway."

With the lull in conversation, Six can sense their tension. Behind him, Lyria peers over the railing's edge. On a regular day, a visit from the Eternals would fill her with energy, but she's too lost in thought to greet them today. Gran follows Esser and Six's gazes to Lyria, and he calls for her. She hums with acknowledgment without looking at him, and after long seconds pass, she turns with a grin more forced than Gran's.

"Oh!" Clouds obscure her sunny demeanour, and she glances once at Gran before running to give them both hugs. Her arms around Six squeeze tighter than usual, seeking something secure.

"Siete's prepared breakfast, so please, if it's not too much trouble," Esser says, gesturing toward the Eternals' ship.

Tension drains from their faces at the invitation; Siete's cooking has that effect on most, and they follow Six and Esser to their airship. However, not even the promise of a full meal allays the graveness that settles over them once they return. Lyria is clinging to Gran closer than she has in recent years, and her responses to Esser are stilted.

Siete greets them with open arms in the kitchen, but Lyria doesn't run to accept the invitation for a hug. "Lyria," he says, tilting his head. "What's got ya so down?"

She plays with the fabric of her skirt, scrunching her hands until they leave wrinkles. "It's okay if I tell them?" she asks in a quiet voice, looking up to Gran.

He smiles at her, putting an arm around her shoulders, and she musters a smile in return. "Let's sit and eat first," he reassures.

They settle in their seats, but everyone is waiting for Lyria, who only stares at her pancakes in between small bites. Siete tries to start a conversation by saying, "I'm surprised you guys wanted to meet at the island _next_ to the problem one. Is it that bad over at Arawo?"

Lyria nods, taking the opportunity. "There's something wrong with the primal there," she says. "When we come near Arawo, I get sick, but it's like… I've been sick for a very long time. I don't know how to explain. And it's coming from the friends we pick up there, too." Esser holds out her hand for Lyria to hold, and she takes it, squeezing.

Gran continues for her. "Yeah, whenever we pick people up from there, they've been… odd, too. They forget we're coming for them or what day it is if they've been there too long. We poked around for a bit before Lyria got too overwhelmed, but the running theory until we sent people in was that trade routes involving Arawo at any point were being sabotaged. But when we showed up to investigate, everyone from townspeople to merchants had memory issues."

"And then," Lyria says, holding Esser's hand tighter, "when we came back with the crew members we picked up, _we_ were late, too, but I swear we were on time!"

Siete makes a noise of contemplation. "And the Eternals could help?"

"Wouldn't've called you over if we didn't think you guys could give some insight." Gran sighs. "With how Lyria's reacting, it's definitely a primal beast. It'd be nice to get all the help we can. You're a resilient bunch."

"Proud as I am of us," Siete says, "you've got quite the crew at your arsenal."

"Captain to captain, then? I'll pass you everything I know from our end, and we stay in touch." Gran rubs the back of his head. "It's like there's more to this problem than even _we_ can handle."

"Let's check the capital ourselves, then. Lyria, are you okay to come with us?"

Though her discomfort is obvious, she nods.

"I can stay with you here," Esser offers upon seeing her apprehension. "If the plan is only a cursory investigation of the capital, there should be no danger if Lyria stays here while the ship orbits the island."

"No," Lyria says, her jaw set when she lifts her chin. "I want to help. It's important."

Gran takes a bite of toast and leans back in his chair. "We should take the Grandcypher there. If we tell the crew what we're doing, those that've been to Arawo before are gonna try to check up on us."

* * *

The members of Gran’s crew that have experienced Arawo's errant primal beast send them off before their investigation, placated by the knowledge that they'll start early. The effects of temporary memory loss accelerate after the sun goes down, so they remain vigilant in their timekeeping to ensure that they have enough hours in the day.

Six notices nothing out of the ordinary when they dock at the capital—ships exchanging cargo, townspeople going about their daily errands—but those initial impressions must be related to why their supposed problem has gone undetected for so long. Lyria clings to Esser when her feet touch the soil and makes constant chatter for peace of mind. The pair walks behind Gran and Siete, leading the way; Six guards the rear alone and gives himself more room to observe.

There may be a primal beast, but its effects don't seem pronounced on the townspeople. Pauai has only become Arawo's centre of business within the past few decades as the most accessible port city of the largest island in this archipelago, but Six has only heard little outside of what Siero mentions at her shop.

A crowd murmuring in the town square interrupts their investigation plans. Six counts eight soldiers, disoriented beyond recognition, as the source of the commotion. Their sustained injuries pierce through their thick armour, their faces doused in blood, and they cannot tell those questioning them with certainty what happened.

Six stays with the rest at the edge of town square. The Eternals and Gran are dressed down for the day, but with their unlikely group and their serious expressions, the citizens recognize them for who they are.

From the crowd, a decorated man approaches them in a uniform of dappled green beside their own bronze. "The Eternals are here? Is it really _that_ much of a problem?" he whispers to them.

Siete glances back at them, and then says, "We're just investigating a few personal reports. Nothing official."

The general's voice is weary. "It may soon be official. We sent troops to investigate a primal beast outside of our borders. The only reason I know that our investigations were unsuccessful is because we have fewer men to send in each time we try." He sighs before attempting a grin. "We here at Arawo have always been timely people… It's a long-running joke among the population. We make and own the least clocks here than anywhere else in the skydom. Maybe that's why it took us so long to realize _anything_ was happening."

Gran frowns, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene. "How many have you sent?"

The grin that the general can put together doesn't reach his eyes. "You'd think it funny if I said I didn't remember. At least it's not as bad as it used to be. The first set of soldiers that we ever sent returned barely remembering their early teenage lives. _These_ men"—he tilts his head toward the group in town square—"only lost a few years, but compared to previous losses, it may be an improvement. We have too many in clinics that don't know how they got there."

After a moment of consideration, he urges them to follow his lead, away from the central part of Pauai. Outside earshot of the townspeople, he tells the group what he can of previous expeditions.

Despite being its capital, it's smaller than those of more established islands in the skydom. The decay seeps from the edge of the city into Six's skin the closer they get, and by the time he can see the emerald green of the forests still untouched by civilization, Lyria has gone silent, clinging tighter to Esser. The general leads them past the few soldiers positioned by a main road in and out of the border, and she stops when they try to go further.

In the middle of explaining the reports he's received from Pauai, the general notices their paused advance, then looks to Lyria. "Does she have a gift?"

"Of sorts," Gran mutters. His eyes are faraway, looking into the forest. It's now late afternoon, and the sun sets over the west to kiss the mountaintops. It shouldn't be this low. The warning to not stay longer than nightfall rings in their minds.

Crouching down to meet Lyria at eye level, the general says, "I'm sorry for bringing you here."

Lyria shakes her head as if she were in pain herself. "The primal beast suffers. Without me, no one would believe just how much."

Siete breathes out, and his next words take on a more authoritative tone. "We've seen enough. If Lyria's feeling sick, then we should return." He may not have the same powers, but he must sense the disturbance the way the others do. Even though everything seems in place, something fundamental is broken on this island.

Six turns to the setting sun again. The leaves rustling in the emerald forest resonates with the uncertainty from which he'd awoken this morning, a whisper of doubt reviving in his unconscious mind.

"That might be best." The general watches the same sun he does. "If you return, ask for Aquino—but I can't promise that I'll remember that you've visited at all."

* * *

It shouldn't take longer than an hour to return to the docks, enough time for the sun to watch over their journey. Instead, what greets them is the bright lights of the Grandcypher, flickering with anxiety against a late dusk sky. As soon as they're on board, the ship embarks on a rocky departure in its haste, and the worried crew members swarm them.

Six's comrades in battle test him on details during their time together, their combat history, and his status with the Eternals; Narmaya gestures to the ring finger of her own left hand, and he nods, mirroring the action to touch his ring hidden beneath his glove. He would find the line of questioning intrusive if not for the relief on their faces, but their satisfaction doesn't quell the doubts' resurgence in his mind.

Siete promises to keep in contact with Gran after bringing the problem back to base, and for their return trip, he remains quiet with reflection. Six stands next to him, pressing their shoulders together while gazing into the night sky.

He turns to Siete's profile, helplessness overcoming him with the resonating doubt to pave its way. Six's words have flown with greater ease over the years of their relationship, but he still struggles to offer comfort when Siete is slipping away from him. Alongside the anxiety of bringing this investigation to the Eternals, he is powerless to protect Siete from the dangers of this mission, short of resolving this mission by himself.

He takes Siete's hand in his, and Siete grasps back like it's his only lifeline. Without a care for the Grandcypher's crew still around them, he pulls Six into his arms. "Can I be selfish for a moment?" he mutters between Six's ears, burying his face in the crown of his head.

"Will anything I say stop you?"

Siete doesn't answer for a long time, resisting the easy banter. The wind rustles through their hair and wraps Siete's cape around him. "You know I'd give the world for you, right, Six?"

Dread joins his doubt and anxiety until he forgets how to breathe. Regardless of whether it was Siete's intention, these are words intended for either new beginnings or absolute ends. "That's the opposite of selfish," he says.

"Maybe saying that right now was. I worried you, didn't I?"

"You always do things that make a sane man worry." He settles against Siete, closing his eyes.

"Oh, I know. But Six, I'd give _my_ world for you. Just in case you've forgotten." Siete says it with a joking tone to placate him, but his thoughts are coloured by a rapid decline of faith of his own merit. Where he was looking forward to celebrating a year of marriage, he feels nothing but the cursed unrest from coming into proximity of the primal beast's territory.

Siete stays quiet for the rest of the trip back to the base, but if it's because he can sense the discord within Six and leaves him alone, he isn't sure.

At the base, he announces an emergency meeting tomorrow after sunrise before evading the company of the curious Eternals, citing a need to consolidate what they witnessed today. But when he talks with Esser and Six about the investigation, the leader of the Eternals falls away to become _Siete_ , his concerned frown furrowing deeper as they struggle to put their dissonance into words.

Esser leaves them alone when she's offered her piece, and Siete slumps against Six. Like habit, their hands find each other's to hold. "Not great, huh? No one has any idea what's going on, and no one remembers what's happening."

Six doesn't know what he needs or wants to hear, and it magnifies the guilt on his shoulders. "At least we have guesswork pointing toward a potential source."

"God, yeah," Siete mumbles. "I don't want this to go on any longer for Arawo. I can't imagine how devastating it is. And even if it _is_ a primal beast, what are we supposed to do to prevent memory loss? Use the power of love and friendship?" He snorts, but the joke falls flat, because Siete, of all people, forgot to inject humour into it.

He sighs, and Six rubs circles into the back of his palm.

"I'm just… worried. Not only for the island, but for us when we go."

"I know." Six pauses. "I as well. But we can discuss the Eternals' limitations tomorrow. With the others, we will have a plan." He tries to remind himself that Siete trusts him by admitting these troubles to him, but he fails. He thinks about how the distance halfway between them has grown.

"You're right," Siete says, weary. "I love you."

Six kisses him instead of saying those words back, trying to fight down the thought that he hasn't done enough.

When they sleep that night, he holds Siete close as his anchor. He tangles their fingers together and brushes his lips across their linked hands, and he mouths an apology against Siete's skin. He only receives a steady heartbeat in response. Siete is already fast asleep.

* * *

Some things never change. Siete shows up late to the meeting that he planned, with bags under his eyes and a tiredness that persists as he nods at everyone. Six would have woken him earlier, but unlike most times when Siete tried to convince him to _stay in bed five more minutes_ just to cuddle, Six let him have those five minutes this morning. He needed the extra sleep.

Sarasa squints at him as he walks in late, crossing her arms. "If you hate early meetings so much, why don'tcha just make these things later?" Like her personality, her sleep schedule could never be tamed, and judging by the messier-than-usual tornado that is her hair, she must be here after a sleepless night.

"Habit," he mumbles into the top of Six's head before dropping into the empty seat beside him. The Eternals watched their relationship progress, so the affectionate action elicits no reaction from them, yet Six's ears still twitch with self-consciousness.

He fights down his embarrassment to wrap his ankle around Siete's beneath the table. Offering this basic comfort is the least he can do.

Siete's tense demeanour escapes no one. Although he's emphasized the importance of this mission by calling an emergency meeting, they don't rush him to start. He takes a deep breath, and they wait.

"We have something of greatest priority," he starts. His foot fidgets against Six's, heel bouncing off the ground. "Unfortunately, we lack information in critical places, so bear with me."

"Nine years and he finally thinks to ask if we can bear with him," Quatre ribs. The sharp grin Quatre offers is just as much habit as Siete walking in late or as Sarasa's incomprehensible sleeping schedule.

Siete's fidgeting slows as he prepares the observations he, Six, and Esser wrote, Gran and the Grandcypher's experiences, and the few words that Aquino offered.

"Let's get to it.

"A little archipelago right in the middle of the skydom named Arawo has been reporting acute memory loss with no discernible source. I know, you're thinking, 'How can they report it when they have memory loss'? As far as we know, it's centralized within Pauai, its capital. But Gran and his crew members reported temporary problems from visits alone.

"We exchanged words with a general, and it turns out that they've been sending soldiers to fight a primal beast. Yeah, it's one of _those_ missions," he says, trying to lighten the mood, but it sounds facetious. No one comments. "Fighting the beast triggers memory loss to an extent, but its methods are not yet known, nor whether the effects are permanent. We…" He hesitates. "saw results."

Unease fills Six again, and he looks over to Siete and Esser, finding the same difficult look on their faces.

While Siete describes the scene at town square, Six adds another physical anchor point by moving a hand to rest on his thigh. The Eternals steel themselves as Six and Esser interject with their own observations, each of them pausing over the descriptions of the townspeople's terror, the blood-stained soldiers and their vacant eyes.

Silence falls after they finish, allowing the images to settle over their minds. Siete opens his mouth, but a slow exhale comes out first to break the tension before continuing with renewed determination. "There _i_ _s_ a glimmer of hope for its resolution, although the price for Arawo's blessing might be the curse of whoever undertakes it. Aquino told us that with each soldier sent to battle, the returning group loses less of their own past. With a balanced team, I believe that we'd be able to defeat, if not at least restrain, the primal beast on its own terms."

"We cannot disregard 'a few years'," Uno interrupts, breaking the enraptured silence that fell over the Eternals. "It may be a significant improvement with context, but we are unaffected by that magic. Our losses would be great."

His concern has basis. This mission has the chance of debilitating them as both individuals and as a group for the amount of unknowns involved. Siete frowns as he says, "I understand that this is a risk beyond what we've known, especially considering my next point—that I want five of us to investigate.

"But I also have faith. Should disaster befall any of the Eternals, we're now more than capable of supporting each other, and that includes any memory loss from this primal beast."

It's rare for over three of them to undertake the same assignment; if ever it happened, it was coincidence. "I know I'm asking a lot by requesting that five people put themselves in a difficult position for a mission that may not succeed." Siete lowers his voice, but keeps his confidence. He searches the Eternals' faces before anchoring himself with Six and continues. "Five is a large number to ask for uncharted territory, but I want to take extra precaution. There have already been severe injuries in the face of the primal beast's aggression. As the one who proposed this impossible task to begin with, I volunteer—"

"I will go." Uno raises his voice, interrupting Siete's next words. As he protests, Uno speaks over him—it's so unheard of that all the Eternals can do is watch. "Should the mission go awry, our main leader should guide the rest while the other is compromised. Additionally, I possess the highest defensive capabilities among the ten of us. It would be a mistake to reject my offer."

Siete opens his mouth to argue, but he bites his lip, unable to come up with a rebuttal in time before the next person speaks. "Then I'm going, too," Funf says. She holds her chin high with defiance.

"No, _fuck_ that." Quatre snarls. He must hate the idea if he doesn't stop himself from swearing at her. " _I'm_ going. Don't even try it."

"Why not _me?_ I'm the only one that can heal! I'm the only one that can do revival magic!"

"Yeah, on _one other person_ if you prepare the spell ahead of time," Quatre retorts. It's because he treats her as an equal in power that he verbalizes his concern. "You still can't bring _everyone_ back. You're just a kid—"

"I'm almost as old as _you_ were when _you_ joined the Eternals."

"Three years," Quatre says over her, "you have _three years_ until you're the age I joined—"

"I'm not just some _kid_ anymore!" She says it with so much conviction that it stops even Quatre's protests. The room falls silent but for her own indignant breathing. She holds the sun in her palms and the stars in her eyes as she did when she was young, but she's no longer in danger of being consumed by it, using it at her command instead. Quatre turns to Okto, seeking guidance.

The paint masks his emotions, but not his brow furrowing, concern reflecting in his frown. "She is correct. She is no mere child, as she has spent most of her life training alongside us, and she has truly become the greatest mage of her generation, if not the one before her. Although our paths were similar at that age, I do not hold as much pride in my youth as I do in Funf's.

"Her status as my daughter makes me apprehensive. However, we cannot ignore her equal status as a mage."

"Fine. _I'm_ going," Quatre snarls, making his disagreement with Okto obvious.

With concern, Esser starts, "Quatre—"

"Sis, the problem's already bad enough to affect what, the capital city of an archipelago? Maybe the entire thing? Who knows if we can contain it? Stardust Town hardly needs both of us. Whatever's left, you, Gran, and the older kids can handle it." To her, his tone softens, but it holds the same stubbornness as Funf had toward him.

With that decided, Nio speaks up before anyone else can. "I'll go." To this day, it's rare that she'll undertake an aggressive mission of her own volition. "Memories are full of emotions. The situation makes me uneasy, as do the melodies that Six, Siete, and Esser carried with them from Arawo. I can hear them now," she says, looking at each of them. "However, I am the best equipped to monitor our states, should unknown magic affect us."

The team they've formed is well-rounded, but they lack a dedicated offense. Any of the remaining Eternals would be fit to take the role, but the thought of anyone else claiming it makes a protest rise within Six.

The light of the meeting room reflects on the red ring chained around Quatre's neck. Without thinking, Six's eyes wander to Song, searching for the silver band around her ring finger. Six closes his left hand into a fist as a reminder of his own promise to love Siete even when it feels impossible.

It has always been easy to love him, but hard to admit to himself. If what Nio says about their melodies is true, then this might be the primal beast speaking to him, resonating with doubts that should no longer exist with unconditional love to fill the void, occupy a space.

But even if his powers could be used to their full potential without destruction, he could never give enough to Siete, who has done so much for him every day by _loving_ him. Siete's increased openness with the Eternals is a detriment only with Six, who fails to support him during times like these, where the only certainty about their future is that they will not return unscathed. Even when he admits weakness, Six cannot be the armour that he needs. He is too clumsy with his words, tripping over intent and delivery.

Despite that, he knows that these doubts of his should never leave his thoughts. This is Six's problem alone; Siete did what he could, but a monster can never change, only be buried beneath the earth for its bones to rise by thoughtless hands. He loves Siete, and for this, he wants to prove his dedication by righting the primal beast by his own wretched power and create a world for those he loves, even if it meant being cast away.

"I will be our fifth member and our main attacker," he announces over the conversation in the room, keeping his words steady but firm. "Everything I have to lose is sitting in this room. Half of them are already going."

"Six," Siete chokes out, a shocked breath given a name. Until now, both of them maintained professionalism over their romantic involvement. For the first time in front of the Eternals, Siete falls apart not as their leader, but as the man tied to Six's side.

"I'll go," Six says, heartbeat drumming in his ears. He nudges Siete's foot. "That's final."

He will return victorious, or he will not return at all. He tells himself this for Siete's sake and for that of the Eternals.

Siete swallows. His hand moves to hold Six's, tangling their fingers. "That makes five." His voice commands the room as it did during the summary of their investigation, but he doesn't hide his nervous tic, the thumb of his left hand running over the golden band of his ring finger. "I ask that everyone stays here during the debrief, so we all know what the plan is. Since we have no idea how long these problems persisted—only the scale is recent, not the problem itself—I'd like you five to operate as soon as possible.

"If anyone has objections, raise them now."

When Six looks around, he can see that all of them have objections, yet none word them. In the face of adversity, they know that the assembled team stands the best chance of surviving.

Siete takes a map of Arawo's main island and lays it against the table, marking Pauai's location and beginning the debrief. They concoct a bare-bones plan, but this mission forces them to operate blind, with only warnings to guide their actions.

Six, Siete, and Esser share their experiences in greater detail to prepare the others, passing their written notes around the room. However, like the night before, none of them can put to words the unease that settled over their hearts, thrumming through their bodies until they jitter with anxiety. Six takes it upon himself to describe the group of soldiers in the main city square, and the horror of the mission he's accepted sinks in. Even when it should be safe during the day, the primal beast warped their own perception of time without meeting it themselves.

And yet—the potential to free the Eternals from him strengthens his resolve until he knows that he's made the right decision. Succeed or fail, Six will prove the same thing.

Once they confirm that there are no lasting effects on those from the initial investigation, Siete plans the mission for a few days from the meeting. He sends a message to Gran, who offers to station members of the Grandcypher, but the group declines.

The others trust in their own safe return, but as the only one of them that's seen firsthand the consequences of facing the primal beast, Six can't meet their level of optimism. They place more emphasis on mental preparation than physical; knowing nothing of the primal beast's attacks, they prepare their best armour and sharpen their weapons, keeping faith in their forged steel.

Six cannot remove from his mind the image of the disoriented soldiers, each with deep incisions in their thick armour.

This mission is close to their anniversary, and he considers giving Siete his present beforehand, but that very action means accepting that the worst outcome will take place. (He pauses. How much of his resolve for this venture is his own, and how much has the primal beast's imbalance ensnared, turning him inside out? Even before meeting the primal beast in battle, it has already affected him, jumbling his thoughts until he doesn't know which are his anymore.)

He's ready for the possibility of failing. He's ready for Siete to see him as he is, a man too lost to deserve the unconditional love he has received. He's ready, but a part of him cannot allow it. He cannot fail to prove that he can use his strength to protect the most important thing in his life.

Every night until the mission, Six commits how Siete's arms rest around his waist to memory. He counts Siete's breaths, a constant even during his fitful attempts to sleep beside him. He keeps a metronome in his heart synced to the rise and fall of his chest like clockwork, and he prepares to move forward.

* * *

Six wakes up to an empty bed and a dark sky; in his panic, he reaches beside him. The sheets are still warm, and when he startles into alertness, sitting straight up, Siete walks through the door. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

Instead of answering, he draws his legs up to his chest and rests his forehead on his knees.

Siete sits beside him, the mattress dipping with his weight, and holds him close. For a long time, they're silent, and Six aligns their hearts until the thundering in his chest subsides. Siete disappearing from his side for the night to swallow him is one of his few, persisting nightmares.

He doesn't know how long it's been until Siete speaks again. "Wanna help me make breakfast?" he asks, keeping his voice low.

Still unable to form words, Six lifts his head, puts a hand behind Siete's neck, and pulls him closer for a kiss.

"Morning breath," Siete mumbles, smiling against his lips. He cups Six's face, stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. "Didn't know breakfast could get you so turned on."

He opens his eyes to see Siete wiggling his eyebrows. "Shut up," he growls. Siete's always had the uncanny ability of removing him from his thoughts to incite the complete opposite mood in him, and even with the world sounding alarm bells in his mind, he follows Siete's whims to forget his worries.

"You gonna give me a li'l sugar before you leave for the mission today, then?" He jokes, but Six's anxiety finds a mirror in Siete's own, becoming more obvious with each word he says.

The easiest way to get Siete to shut up is by giving him a reason to do so. Siete's already dressed for the day, and his complaints about his outfit getting dishevelled go unheard as Six pushes him down and straddles him.

The sunrise paints strokes of orange against Siete's smile while Six loves every inch of him, and when they finish, Six holds him and doesn't let go. "You're clingy this morning," Siete mumbles into the crown of Six's head, his voice still breathy.

Six wants to suspend time for this, lying in bed with him, skin flush and hearing their hearts beat as one. Siete traces his spine with his fingers, and Six is content to stay here and forgo preparation until the mission. For once, Six wants to be selfish.

But as the sky grows lighter with the sun, the anxiety returns once more. He pulls away from Siete, but not before his stomach rumbles.

The noise makes Siete chuckle. "Okay, _now_ come join me to make breakfast, since we've worked up an appetite."

"Go downstairs like _this_?" Six says, gesturing toward their state of undress and the hickies against his collarbones, almost too high to hide.

"After making ourselves decent, but I think we get a pass for today, no?" Siete's voice softens with acknowledging the inevitable, and Six tries to keep his heart under control.

* * *

This time, when Six arrives at Pauai with the other four, they don full uniforms and are recognizable at first glance. They meet with Aquino amidst the commotion, who escorts them toward the border once more.

Hushed whispers from the townspeople, like leaves rustling in a deadened grove, follow them out of the capital. _The Eternals are here,_ they titter. _It must be serious. We're doomed._ "They threw in the towel quick," Quatre complains, lifting his head higher.

"They're playing an odd fugue," Nio mutters. She spends too long looking at every person they pass, unnatural for someone that makes a habit of avoiding people's gazes. "Towns will normally have a guiding harmony present on which an individual's song plays, but here, everyone is out of tune."

"Hang in there, Nio," Funf says. "If we do well here, it'll be over soon."

"I wonder."

No one joins them past the border of Pauai. They embark alone, with the rest of the soldiers keeping watch behind them. Their surroundings fall to decay within steps after the boundaries of the city expire, the vast green landscape rusting against the tree bark.

When Nio falters, the group pauses with her. She materializes her harp underneath her fingertips, but she doesn't play, fingers quivering. "This place wasn't always like this. The primal beast's magic has left her mark."

The thick forest is full of life, chattering at them in the same way the townspeople's whispers clung to their minds. They docked in Pauai early in the morning, but already, the sky has lost its bright blue, the coming night bleeding above their heads. The sun fades from their grasp, and the mountains in the west swallow it whole. The night traps them, caging them among the stardust as if they were one and the same, but none express the desire to turn back.

Time is an undercurrent that dictates every living thing in the skies, but mortal rules define its measurement. Now, when they must fight to regain control over the fleeting and temporary, time shows its face as ancient, never-ending, amoral. The forest grows louder with the inky darkness of night, and with no choice given from the light of the moon, they press onward with their gut feeling.

He doesn't know how long they've been wandering among the deep forests that border Pauai. They must be walking in circles, but each step they take differs from the one before. The foliage shifts before their eyes, and the nightlife sings distinct songs of mockery.

When the dawn breaks, it steals their breaths for the chilly morning air. The confines of the night and the dark forest part like waters to reveal a clearing, their entrance angled to face the new day.

A silhouette mars the light. This is the primal beast, he knows; as sure as he is that the sun is rising and that time is dragging forwards, he knows the one before them now is responsible for . The primal beast takes the form of a woman, suspended upside down and tangled in her own long, black hair. Underneath the restraints are tatters of what must have once been an ornate white dress with gold decorations, and the state of disrepair that makes his subconscious thoughts sing with recognition. Her eyes burn bright red, and a cracked golden headpiece at the same angle as the sun's rays lays in perfect balance atop her inverted head.

She lets out a roar, and Six's eyes close with the force of her shockwave. When they open again, the sun has returned beneath the horizon so it can rise once more.

From the start of this battle, they were at a disadvantage. Their mental resources dwindled during the journey to the sun's edge, and they cannot sustain the adrenaline of a new fight long enough to deliver defeat. With their weapons at the ready, Funf casts her light's blessing to prevent ailments, and Uno prepares his shield.

Funf's spell negates the poison from feeding on their physical resources, but it cannot prevent the flow of time from warping and bending. Before the sun can rise, it resets below the horizon, so dark that the beast's silhouette blends into the sky.

The fight begins again, and again, and again. Binds pulled as taut as steel cage her, and their window to retaliate is too short to land a blow. What few strands they hack loose attack them in return with a vicious sting, slicing through their armour to tense around their bone. She drains their magical reserves faster than they can hope to replenish them; escaping the battle is impossible when the sunrise places them back in the centre of the clearing with every reset.

"We have to retreat," Quatre grits out after Funf heals his wounds. He staggers to stand, abandoning all pretense of being steady on his feet. "We weren't—we _aren't_ prepared enough, how the hell were we supposed to know she'd do this shit—"

"We _can't_ ," Nio wheezes out, more air than sound. Her fingers are flying across the strings to keep their spirits and their mental strength in shape, but she slumps over her harp, her eyes squeezing shut with pain. "We _can't_ retreat. If we try to escape her while she's focused, she'll take everything we have from us—not just our energy."

The sun rising again cuts off any retort Quatre prepares, forcing them into their initial positions behind a shield that Uno cannot maintain. Another roar from the primal beast crashes into them again, constricting them with her voice.

This is not a cry of anger. This is a cry of desperation, the same ice-cold anxiety that rises in Six's veins, latent from the last time he visited Arawo.

They take too long to learn a pattern, but they are nothing if tenacious. Once they formulate a plan to decrease the resets' unpredictability, adrenaline courses through Six's veins. They know it's foolish to hinge everything on a single attack. Their emotions and their conscious mind are compromised, and their physical reserves are diminishing.

Behind her, lances form into fatal points from the sun's rays to launch through their bodies, once again piercing holes in their short-term memory. This is their only chance before they switch priorities to retreating. But despite Nio's warnings, the primal beast must have already taken too much from their spirits. The sun has risen without setting enough for months to have passed; regardless of whether the same amount of time has passed outside of their battle, the equivalent months of weariness cause Uno's precise defense to falter, Quatre's poisons to miss, Funf's veil to decline, Nio's concerto to find false notes.

Chaos as old as the skies rumbles through each of their hearts, and when the sun rises again, Six blinks. Uno can't prepare his safeguard for them before the beast roars again. Her despair becomes more concentrated, anger not at her attackers but at something beyond their comprehension, and it sets in their bones with each sunrise she forces upon them.

Six can't recall on whom Funf casts her magic torrent. It should be on herself or on Nio as their most vulnerable members, but he doesn't have the liberty of time to ask her. Not when spears the colour of the golden sun itself manifest behind the primal beast, now with one individual target.

He can still receive and neutralize one lethal hit. His training as a child ingrained in him the instinct to push himself to his limits until he breaks, remaining stitched to his soul until he had no qualms with enduring any blow with the faith that he would remain whole. But he never learnt how to do so for _others_ until he taught himself by considering the Eternals as his friends.

He didn't know how strong the urge would be to receive pain in place of someone else until he loved the Eternals, loved _Siete_ , and then it had done nothing but consume him.

This urge of his is irrational. The Eternals are more than capable of taking care of themselves, but some of them needed more protection, and the primal beast must know that Nio is one of them, too open to receiving the enemy's anguish so she can translate it for the group. Nio's shield springs to life, but the glassy blue disintegrates before it can form, leaving her with no defense against the primal beast's plea for freedom.

The final moment before the barrage of spears pierces Nio's body, he makes contact with her.

* * *

Something is wrong.

Six notices a discrepancy between the time he can perceive and the true time it takes for him to sprint to Nio, toss her behind Uno's fading shield, and take her place.

Something is wrong.

The first spear strikes a straight course through his chest to pin him to the soil, holding him by his heart, and he thinks: _a_ _h._ The spear isn't physical. No mortal could forge this by their hands. Neither natural elements nor alloys could form this spear, aimed at his perfect centre. The spear is made with the same ether that the sunrise itself consists of, the same ether of spirit swords. The spear of sunlight glides through his corporeal form as one of metal with no resistance until it becomes a part of him. A part of the earth beneath him.

Something is wrong.

When did he last take damage? Had he shattered his mirror image? He should have had time to dodge, but time is their enemy here. He had no time to prevent his own death, but he has nothing but time as he watches himself die. Time is a stream. Time is the warm trickle of blood out of his chest. Time is the invisible flow around him, an enclosed room filling with water, lapping at his feet and begging to drown him.

More spears skewer his limbs, but they are decorative. The damage has been done. The pain keeps him alive without mercy. He knows he is still alive because of this: the barbed spears, with square teeth like gears, twist his flesh from his bone. Time slows to an excruciating speed, forcing him to experience every degree of rotation.

He falls to his knees (was he standing all this time? Staggering, stumbling), and the spear through his heart keeps him upright in the farce of prayer. His head lolls to face the other four, blood pouring out of his lips, burning like lava where words should be.

Whatever part of him that is conscious recognizes the absurdity of the single, coherent thought he next has of having a headache.

Everything in the past, present, and what little future remains for him now exists to cause him pain. But when every nerve in his body is ablaze, he learns to focus on the most basic things. For example, focusing on his headache. For example, focusing on the blood that wets his lip. For example, instead of focusing on the group as a whole, he tries to meet their eyes before his final demise.

He sees Nio first, sprawled across the ground but looking up at him. She looks like she's screaming. Her mouth is open, tears streaking through her dirty cheeks. For example, he mouths an apology ( _for the concerts he missed, because he remembers the happiness in her eyes when the nine of them attended a concert of hers for the first time; for the patien_ _ce_ _she had to adopt when she'd tried to teach him_ _and the Eternals_ _how to play_ _an instrument_ _, because he remembers the off-key tunes he would_ _produce_ _; for hearing her singing when she thought_ _she had_ _no_ _audience_ _, because he_ _cannot_ _remember_ _her gentle smile through_ _her scream_ _s_ ). He has to mouth his apology. He no longer has a voice.

He looks, with his fading capacity, to Funf ( _Sarasa_ _behind her_ _, cornering him in what should have been an empty room of the ship but_ _wa_ _sn't; painting his nails when no one else was around;_ _greeting him in the_ _garden_ _s_ _at the crack of dawn_ _while she practiced her own magic_ ), to Quatre ( _sharing a quiet meal_ _with him_ _while_ _Gran_ _was in the med bay; his guarded tone when Six asked him and his sister for their blessing;_ _sparring the day before this mission and never commenting on Siete watching them in the doorway_ ), to Uno ( _his blue eyes alight with amusement as Six complained about Siete's old habits;_ _teaching him to meditate during their days off_ _;_ _adjust_ _ing_ _the cuffs of his outfit for the wedding_ ).

His vision is permanently blurred, a vignette creeping inwards to his personal event horizon as he slides down to the ground saturated with his blood. The golden spears protruding from his body have the same colour as Siete's hair, his brilliance, the larger-than-life aura.

 _Oh, god,_ Siete. _Siete, Oh, god,_ he thinks. Every utterance of Siete's name makes the spear in his heart twist tighter, and he lets out a howl so desperate he doesn't recognize it as his own. He thought himself past the point of vocalization, but that visceral cry came from the most ancient survival instincts of his being, superseding his body's surrender. The agony curls his fingers to make him scratch at the dirt until it goes so far under the beds of his nails that they sting. Bleed. The earth is too damp, and he curls into himself. It hurts to look away from the other four. It feels like he's admitting defeat.

 _Siete—_ he thinks again, and the tension of the barbs pulling his heartstrings increases until they tangle and snap. How long has it been since he'd pushed Nio out of the way? How long must he force them to watch him die—how long have they been fighting?

The sun is rising again. He knows this because the rays envelop him in a warm light, beckoning him through the pain to accept endless peace as his last bastion. He closes his eyes, his being almost non-existent, but a light still persists. In a spark of infinite pain and torture, he succumbs to the darkness calling for him, the only light of his memories fading until the nothingness of death greets him with open arms and a knowing grin.

He punctuates his last conscious thought with a laugh, wet and bloody and desperate, the last thing he can offer with his life, and it is this: he wanted divine retribution for so many years, and now that it arrives to him in honourable circumstances, he wants to fight it, to return to the Eternals—his friends, to return to his friends, to return to—

_Siete—_

Six wants to suspend time. If he claimed each moment he rejected Siete's request for _five more min_ _u_ _tes_ here, he would have an eternity to spend with him instead of dying now. He would feel the warmth of their skin flush against each other instead of the blood pouring out of his body igniting him to become the sun's surface. Their hearts would beat as one to fill his ears instead of everyone's screams resounding through his body, their parting gift for his dying senses. For once, Six wants to be selfish.

But as the sky grows lighter with the sun, his own life grows dim.

With an apology and Siete's name on his lips, everything fades to a single point, a rhythm echoing in his ears that embraces his body without form; not his own heartbeat becoming one with the shadows, but the memory of Siete's heartbeat against his skin as he falls somewhere beyond time and space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, and welcome to _from the lower depths_.  
> remember that there is more than one road home, and that misdirections are not always malicious.


	2. seconds

Where is he?

* * *

_The world is nothing before it is black. The distinction between nonexistence and what he was before that becomes a fundamental truth._

_The earth rumbles beneath his feet. He sits in a carriage, and around him are shadows of people he is unsure if he knows. They are as ghosts, and all of them are sombre but for a woman he doesn't recognize with hair like flaxen gold._

_In front of him is a child. They stare at each other for an eternity, and as the wheels tumble over the uneven cobblestone road, the realization dawns on him that this must be his younger self. The colours do not resemble a living creature's, but the possibility exists that he was this shadowed, inverted colour in childhood, his clothes tattered and in impossible shades that his eyes cannot parse. He never looked in a mirror before joining the Eternals._

_This is the version of himself that he saw reflected in obsidian masks, a grave shape formed in an empty void. This is the figure that reigned above lakes of blood, stained red with fury and simmering crimson with betrayal. This is what remained when the stardust settled and the fireflies illuminated him from behind, a forgotten shadow burnt into the bark of old trees with leaves that whistled funeral dirges._

_This is who he sees_ now _. He is compelled to tear his eyes away and look to the other passengers, knowing that the ghosts he sensed before will be replaced by rotting, bloody corpses of what Karm once was, hands outstretched into the edge of his vision to take him from the world. He knows where he belongs and to where he will return, and it is the same as the spectres that surround him._

_The thought forms, and then a voice speaks to him._

Not yet, _it whispers in his mind. It is not of the young boy that might have been him, nor is it the only other inhabitant of the carriage that would not turn into a carcass. The voice rides in a chariot from the inky blackness to chase the sunset away, with only a single star as its lantern. It echoes from the deep night indistinguishable from the shadows in his heart. She calls from the sunrise bleeding into the sky. He closes his eyes, as if he had remained awake for too long in this strange dimension and needed an excuse to fall asleep._

There are two others for whom you must save your breath, _the voice says, the mother of hope coiling around his flesh to sew his skin whole_. You have done too much for me. Your memories are your life.

* * *

Where is Siete?

* * *

_Not yet._

* * *

_Where am_ I?

This is what stars must feel when they are born from dust.

In the time it takes for him to blink, the excruciating heat of gravity compressing and expanding to the size of the universe tears him apart at the seams. A light brighter than ten million suns erupts beneath his eyelids, and he cries out like a newborn searching for air until his throat can form no sound. Dirt snakes under his nails, stinging his nail beds—he's beginning to feel as though he has already lived this moment.

That is of least importance. He is conscious. He takes stock of his surroundings.

The sun is rising. There are four Eternals here with him—Uno, Quatre, Funf, Nio—all of whom are screaming at him. Funf is sobbing like the young child she is, even now in the heat of battle—but calling her a young child is incongruent to his observations.

_Is_ that Funf?

Are those the Eternals, in gold and silver and bronze, but less black to swallow their form? Are those the Eternals, wearing blood like medals of honours across their horror-stricken faces? The style of dress is too cohesive for them to have been on an undercover mission, but before he can confirm he is in similar garb, Funf screams his name again.

She screams it in the same shrill tone he is used to, but the desperation is so thick that he stumbles back to his feet as an immediate reaction before his mind registers the action. Their enemy shrieks, but something about the voice beneath the anguish is familiar; while he winces, he can face her even as the others recoil.

He doesn't know why they hesitate to attack, but they must have been fighting for a while for their retaliation to weaken this far. (Why doesn't he know where he is?)

Nio's augmentation spells fade from his veins, and with them, her body drops from the height at which she's floating. Her exhaustion is all physical; she never stops moving, her hands flying up to cover her ears as she mutters, over and over and over, _His melody, his melody, his melody_ , a ceaseless mantra _—_ "Can you fight?" Uno raises his voice over the chaos.

Tired of waiting for Six to recover, Quatre draws his blades with a guttural cry. He transforms into a flurry of movement without hesitation, a blue-hot diamond scorched in the air behind his back to feed his movements.

The ferocity of Quatre's barrage must weaken the primal beast, but still, she remains tangled in her bonds of equal protection and confinement. Instead of answering Uno ( _why doesn't he know where he is?_ ) he launches beside Quatre, claws at the ready. This close, her cries of pain sound like encouragement to his ringing ears.

The two of them land simultaneous blows that sever her hair, causing the strands to whip outwards and slice through their skin as steel through the flesh of fruit. The recoil throws them into the shield Uno prepared, on the wrong side of protection, when the primal beast roars once more.

This time, the roar fades into a hum of songbirds and of leaves rustling among wind. The sun rises behind her, and her broken bonds glitter and fade underneath the early morning. She lays still, and like a mirage's flicker, the image of her returns to them upright.

_Mortality,_ a voice as clear as daybreak resonates in their minds, and the name _Hanan_ floats to their lips, the knowledge of the primal beast's name older than time itself. _It is the prerogative of mortal life and flesh to liberate me and my sisters, for immortals cannot grasp the freedom within limitation._

As a phantasm, she shimmers with the changing angle of the sun, reflecting on nothing more. In the echoes of light, they receive disconnected images in their minds, as fundamental to mortal knowledge as the name _Hanan_ once was: a mountaintop disappearing behind fog, an impenetrable darkness beneath the surface, both imbued with the same energy that she herself carries.

Her defeat came too easily for the state of disarray that they are in, but there is a distinct loss in his chest wrapped in the tatters of his uniform. The ground underneath Six's feet could collapse if he took a step forward, and his heart is as empty as the sky without stars on a cloudless night.

Funf's magic washes over him, but it's wrong—no, it's _more_ , healing him faster with less hesitation. It goes only where it must. Without the pitch black of his standard uniform, he can see the blood adorning him in broad daylight. This is more blood than he should be able to hold in his body. Losing this much should indicate his death.

Dread fills his chest, and he turns to them, ignoring the ache in his muscles. Colour drains from their faces as they stare back.

"What did I do," he growls. His ears are still ringing. The primal beast shed no blood, and there is no one here but the five of them. He clenches his fists and snaps, "This is too much blood for it to all be mine."

"That _is_ your blood," Funf blurts out. Her voice is different—mellowed out, and not in the same way that the sombre look on her face carves out shadows with tragedy. She's _grown._

"What's happening?" Six demands.

Quatre storms over to him, maelstrom incarnate, a fight in every muscle. Six prepares to defend himself; the hairs on the back of his neck raise, his fists clench, but Quatre stops when they're toe to toe, expletives dead in his mouth. This close, Six notices the abject despair through his anger before he turns away, his grip around the daggers straining.

Six _knows_ something is wrong. Everyone is acting strange toward him, but more than that, he's been disoriented ever since he regained consciousness—and when did he lose it? Even though their battle is over and Funf healed him, he has yet to regain full capacity over his senses.

Something is wrong.

"Stop," Nio chokes out, hands clamped around her ears. "Stop, stop, _stop_ —"

Concern flares within him. He's never heard her sound this distressed. "Nio—"

"Your melody," she speaks over him in a voice louder than the songbirds of the peaceful clearing, burying her head in her knees and curling in on herself. Her shield springs to life, and a montage of every massacre he could have committed while unconscious holds his mind hostage. "You've reverted to your old fugue," she rushes to say, words tumbling out before she can restrain herself. "When you _died—_ "

His heart drops from his chest down to the ground crumbling underneath him. When the ringing in his ears stops and his eyes can focus again, his eyes find Funf. She's already staring at him with pale lips and shaking hands.

His voice doesn't sound like his own when he can find it, lodged in the chaos of his beating heart. "When I _what_?"

Funf nods to confirm, trying to keep her words steady. "Y-You had no pulse, and I was protecting Nio at the time, but you—" she breaks into a sob, burying her face into her palms.

Mouth slack, his hand touches his chest. He drags his fingers against the soaked uniform. "This is _my_ blood?" he says, hoarse.

Uno won't meet his eyes as he explains, keeping his tone neutral. "You leapt to protect Nio from a fatal attack, and then Hanan's magic rendered you immobile before killing you." The name of the primal beast makes his frown deepen, unfamiliar with how familiar the knowledge is. "The moment you died, Nio repeated that she could no longer hear your heartbeat."

While they talk at Six, he moves his hand up to the side of his neck to check his pulse, his fingers trailing blood against already marred skin.

Some Eternals can survive lethal hits, and among Funf's arsenal of spells is the ability to revive one target, should she prepare it on the correct person ahead of time. But according to them, that spell had been on Nio and not Six. On instinct, he put himself in harm's way for her.

Fog continues to cloud his mind, exacerbated by their lack of communication. Something here is still wrong, an unspoken observation that they refuse to tell him.

He snarls like a cornered, caged animal. "What else are you hiding? Nio, what do I sound like?" He's losing control, becoming the monster he was a fool to ever believe he could escape. Whatever he did before his death brought so much turmoil to his melody that it brought Nio to her knees, paining her past the point of coherent explanation.

"You sound like the primal beast," she rasps out, lifting her head. She looks _through_ him instead of _at_ him. "You sound like the primal beast, but she should have disappeared with our victory. Your melody is too antiquated, and above that, you haven't sounded like this since before you and—"

She inhales her next words, eyes widening with regret. She averts her gaze, but it falls on Quatre and stays there, tethered to him.

Everyone's avoidance makes impatience crawl over Six's skin, digging its claws in and spurring him to meet the fight they bring to him. His eyes follow the rest to Quatre, the almost imperceptible shift in his demeanour, and the horrors he could have committed flood his mind. From what he can gather, they aren't near Stardust Town; the air is too humid, the foliage too green for this time of year. Besides, he knows he'd already be dead if he did anything to Esser, and the same goes for Gran, for Siete—

Siete's name makes his breath stutter, like an anchor dragged across the ocean floor _._ He's been able to rein in his feelings before, out of necessity and to placate his rational mind, but as soon as _Siete_ appears in his thoughts, his ribs strain to hold his hammering heart. "Since before me and _what_?"

At a loss, Nio looks to the others and whispers to them—and only them, judging by their reactions—"It's been five and a half years."

"But it doesn't make sense," Funf mutters before Nio finishes. (With the way she speaks, how she falls to ruins, she can't be a child anymore.) "Defeating the primal beast was supposed to revert the spell on the island, too. This shouldn't even be happening to Six right now. I don't get it, I—"

"Since before me and _what,_ Nio?" Six senses the panic in the group build to its peak. "What the hell is going on?"

His chest rises and falls with exertion, with panic, the only motion in the clearing where everyone is frozen in place. Their expressions are paused in a different stage of dread until Uno moves, breaking the spell over the clearing. When he makes eye contact with Six, he sees something shatter behind Uno's eyes, as much as the others.

His voice is so disconnected from emotion that his tone becomes flat, but Six can sense the _regret_ underneath the still waters of his eyes. "Six."

He's taking too _long_ to—

"It has been five and a half years since you and Siete first became romantically involved."

Six understands the meaning of each word in that sentence, but they become incomprehensible when put together. This is a joke, but they look too serious to commit to telling a joke of this calibre, and it's in bad taste. It's more like something Siete would—

He laughs. It sounds like a bark. "If you're going to lie, make it believable."

No one else laughs, even when he discovers their farce for what it must be.

It was impossible for someone as aware of their history as Six to forget so much of his life. He catalogues his past horrors in detail, and he can recount every day before this moment with perfect clarity. Yesterday was an uneventful day in his room, where he stayed alone after Nio left with Esser early in the morning and Sarasa spent all day in the nearby forests. The day prior, he reported a simple collection mission to Sierokarte before returning to the base. He contains all of this within him, a dam with no cracks.

His memory is crystal clear, and yet he woke up in a battle with no recollection of how things led to that moment. Nothing about the group assembled here, their uniforms, or their enemy is familiar. He can't recall being debriefed for a mission with any details close to what he's seeing now. But he remembers. He can still retain other parts of his life. The only thing missing is the years they claim he lost.

The unease pumping through his veins makes his fingers twitch. The dirt under his nails itches, begging for his attention.

He holds his hands to the light and wipes them off. Where are his gloves? He is meticulous with wearing them. He keeps them pristine as a reminder of the lives he took, and yet he allowed these hands to become filthy. They're covered in blood and soot and—

Cleaning his hands always reveals something he never should have forgotten; this time, instead of revealing the scars of his misdemeanours, it grants him a golden band, hugging his left ring finger. His head shoots up so fast that both the revelation and the information he's trying to process makes him dizzy. "Do you think this is a fucking joke?" he spits out, his grasp on language deteriorating until he resorts to profanities.

Nio recoils, and Funf looks heartbroken, and Uno's face is grave, and Quatre—"This is _real_ ," Quatre seethes, precise fury in every word, "and if you don't believe it, what the hell did you two do all of _that_ for?" He gestures to the ring on Six's finger.

Six has had enough of this. Whatever Quatre is implying makes nausea run laps through his body. He takes off the ring, but it feels like he's removing his hand with it, paring flesh from bone.

The ring scrapes off dirt but leaves the blood behind, cracked and dried. With shaking fingers, he holds it up to the light, compelled to follow this nightmare to its very end.

The inscription inside carries his name that isn't _Six_ , one he wanted to forget but never could, carved beside a promise he doesn't remember making. "No one should know this name," he says, drained of all emotion.

"Siete knows." Uno corrects him. Six wishes he wouldn't. He's never heard Uno sound as conflicted as he does now. "He's the only person you've told."

"I didn't," Six insists. "He can't. He can't _know_." He pushes the ring away, shoving it at the person closest to him.

That person is Quatre. Six pushing the ring at him unleashes the resentment he's been holding back. "The fuck is so hard about understanding that Siete _loves_ you?" he barks, grabbing Six's wrist and digging his nails into the soft skin.

As Six struggles to break free, Quatre presses the ring into the centre of his palm. He doesn't break eye contact as he curls Six's fingers over it, forcing him to ball his hand into a fist until his nails leave crescent marks into his palm. Around Quatre's neck on a chain is a ring that gleams with the same red-hot anger that he directs toward Six now, and he thinks, _when did that get there?_

Nio flinches at the same time the sensation of ice-cold horror drowns his veins, and Quatre lets go of him to stare at her.

"Why would he," Six mutters, his voice hoarse. "What _happened_ to me?"

So lost in confusion, he doesn't notice Uno walk up to his side. He startles when he hears him speak. He's too close. Everyone's too close. "Let's return to the ship first, Six," Uno says. He sounds more like he's talking to himself, despite being explicit in addressing him. "We don't know how long it's been, and we need to touch base—"

"I can't," Six croaks out, his resolve crumbling. He cannot face Siete. Everyone here is convinced that he suffered a great loss of a time during which he'd formed a conclusion about his feelings toward Siete, ones that were reciprocated. There are too many details that should convince him that the amount of years he's lost is consistent with what they're telling him, but he cannot shake the notion from his mind that the Eternals' relationship with Siete is still recovering from the Seven-Star Sword's possession.

His mind is barely weeks from their mission at Cenea; the first time Siete approached him after their injuries healed, separate of duty, it was to ask him, _It might be a bit soon_ , _but do you wanna grab dinner?_ Siete's smile lacked his normal confidence—and Six could tell, both because he had been staring and because Siete was making the effort to be more transparent.

Six considered him too optimistic about recovering a friendship that was tenuous to begin with. But Siete had a way of pulling him back into his orbit, and Six forgave his transgressions so they could return to normalcy. Siete was more open with him in the few hours of that mission than he had been after relinquishing the Seven-Star Sword, too caught in the adrenaline to offer anything but honesty. Somewhere in his mind, Six missed his company while ignoring him as the other Eternals did. But admitting that was akin to a death sentence, and so Six kept his heart caged with the secret he'd been denying since the night at the pub.

It was dangerous to accept his dinner invitation, but Siete was attempting to repair what they had between them, and Six has always been weak to Siete, for Siete. They didn't have much between them, but it was _theirs._

He stared at Siete's face trying to form an answer. _A snack at most_ , he said instead of leaving him, failing to keep distance between them.

But there was no way _Siete_ would reciprocate the same feeling that constricted his heart until he forgot how to breathe, until he shut his eyes tight and pressed the base of his palm against his eyelids to make stars burst. He couldn't think of Siete as weak, and that included weak for _Six_ , with an emotion Six himself could give no name.

"You fucking coward," Quatre spits. Six inhales so fast that he chokes, brought back into the present by the hand fisted in his uniform, yanking him around. "That's all you ever were. You had _everything_ , and you—"

Funf wails as she punches Quatre in the arm. At some point, everyone gathered closer to him, making him claustrophobic in a life that isn't his. "It's not his fault," she cries, tears beading down her cheeks. "I—I had my spell on Nio, not Six—"

"There is no one to blame," Uno tries to placate her, but he sounds as though he would like to say _except for myself_. "Our greatest priority is to regroup. Each one of us has sustained different injuries, and it would be best if we returned to the base to reorganize ourselves."

Six's vision blurs as he tries to discern the differences between the Eternals he knows and the Eternals before him. There are more wrinkles on Uno's face. Quatre's filled into his lanky frame, abandoning all the awkward sharp angles of teenage years once and for all. The accuracy of Nio's discerning eyes no longer hides behind a fear of confrontation, piercing into him in an effort to understand him. Funf looks like the teenager everyone claims she is, and even through the stress of the situation, he can sense the control underneath.

That he's lost years of his life in which he was _happy_ is impossible to accept, even when faced with evidence.

He trails behind the rest, following them down a road with no discernible end until dirt turns to cobblestone under his feet and a sign for a city named Pauai greets them. Six shrinks away from the gaze of those keeping watch at the border, who whisper that _they're back in one piece, what have they done? Are they fine? There's so much blood_. A man with medals across his dappled green uniform meets them there, and Uno recounts the details of battle.

Six turns from the watching soldiers to the other three as they wait. "Debrief me on this mission."

After exchanging looks with each other, they tell him everything; Arawo's failing business, the reported memory loss in its capital, the primal beast's effects on the capital's best knights. Each word they speak carves out what's left behind of him in his shell until he's hollow once more.

"And I volunteered myself for this suicide mission," he interrupts, unable to listen further.

"It was you or Siete. Anyone else in the room, really, but we knew it would be between you two." Quatre's words are as deliberate as they always have been, but that response is the most cautious he's sounded during the debrief. "You looked like you wanted to kill him for suggesting he go in your place."

"I cannot—Do not—" He speaks only for the sake of speaking, but he has nothing to say. Siete is competent. Six has no qualms about him partaking in such a mission, despite lacking as much information as they had before engaging.

"I cannot return with you to the base," he says. "Not as I am."

Over Quatre's protest, Nio speaks without lifting her eyes from the ground. "If you stay behind, I'll stay with you here. The song of this main island is different. There's a melody now, but it makes the dissonance more obvious. If there is one thing I _must_ do—"

She looks up at him with wide eyes again, and this time he doesn't force her to finish her sentence. There are no more answers for him to find.

Uno returns without the general. Nio tells him that she'll stay behind with Six to survey the changes of the island, and although concern passes over his face, he allows it, stating that it would give the Eternals time to absorb Six's demise. He sends a message to the Eternals to collect them, refraining from mentioning the consequences of their victory.

Six leaves them to return to a home he no longer knows with Nio beside him, escaping before he can see the airship approach from the horizon.

* * *

When did their uniform become so recognizable that, even in tatters and covered with grime, he and Nio received a room at Pauai's inn at a discount? When did the populace laud the Eternals' vigilante work rather than fear it?

Lost in their own thoughts, neither he nor Nio carry a conversation. That much is the same between them. In the shower, Six washes blood from his body, watching the red mingle with the dirt to drain away the years he no longer has.

While rinsing, he looks up once to the mirror; he doesn't recognize himself, gaunt with shock but thriving beneath it. He traces his cheeks, feeling the healthy fat underneath the trauma. Whoever he was before this incident, he ate well and kept in shape. Above his jaw is a crescent-shaped scar faded to time, and he cannot fathom the thought of removing his mask long enough to receive a scarring injury on his face.

He looks away, turning the heat as high as possible to fog the mirror, and he scrubs his skin until it's raw.

The ring never leaves his grasp, his fingers aching as he finally uncurls them to reveal it in his palm. Nowhere can this ring exist. He cannot leave it behind in their room for the night, still coated in blood and dirt; he cannot put it on his finger, where it does not belong. He cleans it until it gleams like sunshine, scrubbing until the inscription inside should fade away, but it never does.

He runs a bath with water almost boiling, and as he numbs himself with the heat, he finds scars where there should be none, leaving no inch of his skin untouched. He sees marks that tell him no stories. He traces the seven starburst patterns across his chest with his right hand, avoiding the thought of what his left once held.

The bath washes his blessings away until only his imperfection persists, an empty vessel tainted by the mind and soul that he lost. His dirty uniform stains the floor, and he considers that he should reappear in rags fitting for the hell whence he revived.

Nio is in their room when he returns, her own uniform folded in the corner as she positions her hands over her harp. Blood from her broken calluses already mar the white bandages wrapped around her fingers. Her only movement is the rise and fall of her chest, the silent tear rolling down her cheek, as she prepares to perform a dirge.

He doesn't ask questions about the years he'd lost, and she offers nothing in return. The Eternals' actions are too consistent for him to deny the truth. But when he lays against the tatami, she plays the melody he knows is his from the first note without prompt.

She has played the song of his heart in the past, but now, it jumps with hanging cliffs and dives. The rests in her playing are deliberate; not once has she taken liberties with people's melodies, performing them as they are. Her pauses are unsettling, because her body stills with the music, frozen in time if not for her breathing.

Each of those abrupt stops is as much a part of him as the notes that shatter the silence when they reappear. Her song is the most convincing argument that he's lost years as the others claim, because her music reaches every corner of his sordid life without shame or judgement. He struggles to breathe, but he cannot stop her. He needs the ugly reminder that this horror is _his_ , the phrases of faint optimism hidden somewhere within her deliberate silences.

The pauses get longer, like shadows stretching out as the sun dips down to meet the horizon. He doesn't lift his head from his hands for hours, the ring still wrapped in his fist, and she writes in the space between them his history.

She finishes when night falls. He waits for the silence to be absolute before he relaxes his muscles. His body aches as if he hasn't moved for days. Nio begins another piece, and this one isn't his, but parts of it echo against the hollow chamber in his heart. She tells him, with less melancholy and more determination, that what she plays now is the song of the island. She says she has work to do, and it's the most strangled, sincere enthusiasm he's ever heard from her for any mission.

Breathless, choked by tears, she explains that Hanan's righted melody uncovers another primal beast out of balance with the countermelody. Once they restored her, they could untangle the harmony upon which imminent disintegration sat. _Rest,_ he tells her, but she pays him no mind. The song she plays in her haste unsettles him. _You've done everything in your power._

She is lost in the music, and he drifts unconscious with an island's decay for a lullaby.

* * *

While the sky is still dark, but stars twinkle from the night, he wakes.

He holds up the ring to the moon. The circular band is a perfect border around the satellite, and he keeps it against his heart when he returns to fitful sleep.

* * *

Their airship arrives the next morning, and only Uno is aboard to greet them with spare uniforms. Six is no more prepared than he was yesterday to return to the base; wearing the clean uniform as a second skin only reminds him he cannot peel off his own. His loss now defines him in the present with no past upon which to build, and if not for Nio's suites the night before, he would consider himself lost beyond a doubt.

He is missing years of his life. This reality is no easier to bear than its alternate lies.

Where Uno was their shaky guidance yesterday, he is even more distant today. He says little to Six, and Six has nothing to say to him, watching him take the helm with remorse he's familiar with under his own skin.

The sight of their base almost brought him comfort before his accident, but now, he wants to run away. Terra lets out a low rumble of concern when she sees Six, lowering her head to nudge him as he clambers onto her back.

The differences between his memory and the concrete proof of his loss are immediate when he enters the base. Nio hums in acknowledgement, in warning, in harmony to release his high-strung anxiety from her mind.

Song peeks around the corner of the common area, and her expression falls by a fraction when she makes eye contact with Six, even beneath his mask. He glances to the moonlight silver band on her left ring finger. Her smile struggles to stay optimistic through the oppressive atmosphere. "You're late. Uno, it took you longer than expected to get back."

Uno's frown deepens. A layer of frost guards his voice. "The situation is worse than we thought. Where's Siete?"

Song takes an extra second to respond, and she measures each of her words before saying, "In the meeting room. He's…" Realizing her smile's fallen, she picks it up again. "He's been there all night."

Seconds pass in which none of them speak. Uno breaks every silence, leading them through to restart their routine, or what they can restore from it—but his own speech is uncertain. "Then let's not keep him waiting any longer."

"I need a moment," Six mutters, and they leave him be. Song's eyes stay on him as she exits.

Even the circulating air is new in its earthiness, pacifying a primal part of his mind. Plants snake around support beams and spill out of their containers. He once called this place home. Acrid nausea festers in his gut with the realization. This base is lived in, how Siete always wanted for the Eternals.

(Something twists in his chest whenever he thinks of Siete, something that chokes every breath coming in and out of his lungs.)

Funf comes barrelling downstairs and straight into Six for a hug as he absorbs his surroundings. Unused to the contact, he stiffens; she lets him go a second later and holds his hand with both of hers. In that gesture, she is the same child he remembers.

"This could be kinda fun," Funf says, trying to hold on to her sunny demeanour, but he knows from the moment she opened her mouth that she's been crying. "It's like a home remodelling challenge where you come back and…"

"Everything's different," he finishes for her.

"For the better?" she attempts. Her eyes water when she looks up at him. "I'm sorry—"

"This isn't your fault." The response is immediate; despite having no memory of the event, he still works to comfort her instead. He cannot blame Funf for acting with the grace of her power. "Because of you, I'm still alive." Saying those words with gratitude and not scorn is unfamiliar to him, one who begged for divine retribution to strike him dead.

Funf doesn't respond, and when he breaks himself out of his thoughts for just long enough to notice, he can feel her small hands shaking.

He balls his free hand into a fist to stifle his own tremors. "Let's go."

The path to the meeting room is unchanged, but its walls are not. Funf takes him on an unintentional tour of his life's evolution, and he only sees one picture in its frame before he averts his eyes. The two of them are the last to arrive, and Funf squeezes his hand again before sitting in her seat.

He pauses in the doorway. In Sarasa's eyes is a sympathy that he's unaware she could possess, a true invocation of consideration for others learnt over time and experience. Esser carries self-confidence alongside her poise; she looks at him for only a few moments before turning her gaze to the others, watching over them while they're distracted with their thoughts. Through the face paint, Six sees more wrinkles on Okto's forehead, and his steadfast posture has grown not _soft_ , but compassionate.

And Siete—

"Whoa, full mask?" Siete tries too hard to inject cheer into his greeting, and he coughs after receiving a knowing silence. On a normal day, Six would only wear half of his mask at the base, but nothing about these circumstances is normal.

Both he and Siete are wearing gloves. He brushes a hand over his pocket to check if the ring is there. (On the airship, he held it up to the light for it to fill in the hollows of the inscription inside. It illuminated his name, a reminder of the part of him that should have died. It would be too easy to throw it over the edge to meet a fate in the Crimson Horizon. He hung it over the clouds, threatening to let it slip between his silk-clad fingers.)

He doesn't know how to answer Siete, or if he _can_ without every cell in his body protesting. The Eternals watch him sit in the only empty seat at the table—beside Siete, the same one he's had since their inception.

"Silent treatment, that's a-okay," Siete says with a smile as forced as his first exclamation. "We've got a lot to talk about, anyway, so go ahead and brood. Let's get to it!" He rolls his neck, shifting into seriousness; the familiar persona puts Six at ease, but not by much.

"So, the mission. Quatre and Uno summarized it"—and it doesn't escape Six's notice that he doesn't include Funf, who's still fidgeting in her seat—"but with all five of you here, it's time for the bigger picture." Siete's stilted voice is as obvious to them as the strained cheer.

Six lets Nio recount their battle with Funf, Quatre, and Uno. He learns in great detail of the primal beast, of his gruesome death; guilt racks Nio's description of the moment when Six pushed her out of the way of the attack that ended his life.

Siete approaches their information with a deathly stillness. It reminds Six of Nio's posture as she played the silent voids of his lost history. "So we're positive that Hanan was the primal beast that was causing problems?" Siete asks when the group finishes.

Nio nods. "Yes, and no. Hanan was out of tune, but at the end of the battle, her melody was immaculate. But… there may be more than one primal beast." This is no surprise to Six when the dissonance followed him in his dreams, but the implications of her suggestion make the Eternals speechless.

Quatre's eyes turn to Six, and he keeps his eyes on Nio.

She bites the inside of her cheek, desperate to explain herself in the wake of everyone's shock. "I stayed awake with Six to play the island's song. We heard a clear melody, but the countermelody we found, and its harmony, are as unbalanced as Hanan once was.

"And..." She trails off, regretful for her haste—but they listen. If she believes there's truth in her observation, then it has worth. "My playing still affected Six. If Hanan was the only one, then Arawo shouldn't be resonating with him. Even though we're far away, I can hear the island in this room."

Siete slumps back in his chair and tilts his head to the ceiling. "Whew," he breathes out, deflating, "that sure is something. _More_ , huh." His insincere laugh makes Six's skin crawl, but because it makes him sound like a man trying not to fall apart instead of a facetious man.

"It may be wise to continue at a later date," Okto offers. He gestures to Funf, who doesn't notice she's being watched, too busy holding back her tears. "Today's conversation has taken its emotional toll on its participants. Everyone would benefit from additional rest outside the immediate clutches of the beast."

Six doesn't want to be alone with a body years ahead of this mind, but the others need to recover. It would be selfish of him to request that they continue.

"Some other time it is, then!" Siete looks around the room and pauses at Six.

His smile is unreadable as Six stares back, searching for answers. He regrets it; restrained as Siete's expression is, he discerns _something_ leaking through that he cannot in good conscience give a name.

This broken emotion Siete directs toward him is misplaced. Six lost half a decade spent together as his punishment for finding happiness through relinquishing his past. He is no stranger to loss, but this time, he extended far enough outside himself that his tragedy impacted everyone he risked caring for—a crew of people he called friends and a man he called his husband.

Siete stands up, interrupting his thoughts once again and commanding everyone's attention. "Meeting adjourned, let's all take a few days to rest, then regroup here. But! Be in top shape tomorrow morning. All nine of us are gonna fight Six one-on-one in a row."

"Wait, we're _what_?" Sarasa asks, confused. If he didn't know any better, he'd call her concern genuine, and he waits for her earth-splitting grin at the prospect of an aimless fight. It never comes.

"Surprise! So we can gauge where Six is, regarding his combat skills. We'll need everyone here for our upcoming battles, so we gotta get used to each other again—"

"You won't replace me," Six sneers, not as a question.

Siete's smile falls, and the cracks in his facade become a chasm. It nags at something from the depths of time he's lost. "Never, Six."

The Eternals file out until they're alone. Siete tries to restore his easygoing smile, but sadness colours his eyes and years of history settle in the crow's feet at their corners. It terrifies him that Siete hears the same thunder Six stores in his own rib cage. No one should feel like this for him, least of all _Siete_.

"Don't let everyone intimidate you!" His cheer sounds more tense without the other eight Eternals to absorb and reflect it.

"I'm not scared of tomorrow's fight."

" _I_ am." Siete is so prepared with his response that Six's eyes widen behind his mask.

When he turns to Siete, a crumbling version of the man Six thought he knew replaces the smile. "Truth be told, I'm terrified. I—I'll talk with someone else." He dismisses his worries with a hasty, high-pitched chuckle. "But we will never replace you. No fucking way in hell."

His lips pull into a thin line, and he continues over any response Six could form. "Try and rest for tomorrow." He takes a deep breath and walks out without looking back.

Six stares at the space Siete occupied long after he leaves, caught in his inescapable gravity.

* * *

So many photographs litter the halls between every landing point in the base that five and a half years lost to time can't be enough. Nio's songs, the horror of the other Eternals—those were enough proof, and yet still these picture frames create a blurry mosaic to mock him, always out of focus.

There are more social gatherings hanging on one wall than his mind can fabricate. When he musters the courage to look, he finds few pictures of only him and Siete, and what he stumbles upon is unromantic—candid scenes on the ship, Siete asleep in the meeting room while Six raises his eyebrows at the camera, returning from the battlefield with dirty capes and unrestricted smiles, always in their uniforms.

Even if the self he lost promised his life to Siete, he was still too shy to take photos with him; it saves his sanity as much as it makes him doubt himself.

From the beginning, where Siete met him at the Karm hamlet, Six tried to keep him at a distance. It was too easy for him to fall prey to a certain kind of compassion. But despite his efforts, he knew he was hopeless from the second he dreamt of Siete holding his hand as he watched that skyfarer leave his life.

He was content to contain that weakness as his secret until he died, but Siete had fallen back—no, fallen _down_ to his level, met him in the ruins of his despair, and loved him for the monster he was. He tricked Siete into believing he could be a good person. He tricked _all_ of the Eternals.

Footsteps approach him, and he comes to from his rumination, paused in the middle of the hallway and staring at a picture. Sarasa is christening an airship, wielding the wine bottle as she would a baseball bat and aiming for the hull as if she could miss.

Song walks up next to him, and while her presence brings him peace of mind, she is still not the Song he knows. "She almost broke the ship doing that," she says with a weary sigh. Glancing at Song beside him means that he glimpses other photographs, so he stays focused on what's in front of him. "Lucky for us that glass breaks. Ships do too, but it's like rock-paper-scissors. But… Sarasa always wins."

He wants to leave her standing there so he can go to his room, knowing sleep would never come.

"While you're here…" Song trails off, and it becomes awkward between them. "Ah, never mind. It might be too much."

With a voice that sounds hollow to his own ears, he says, "Have resolve."

She laughs with regret for what she's about to say. "Do you wanna see the wedding wall?"

"The _what_." That combination of words injects ice cold blood through his veins, and if not for the ring in his pocket, he would dismiss it.

Song has the decency to stifle her ensuing giggles, but it doesn't chase the sadness from her eyes. "It's kind of a dumb name, I know, but you got embarrassed _all_ the time that your wedding photos were out here, so we moved them to a less busy room. Mine and Silva's are there, too."

He stares at the photo in front of him instead of focusing on her words. Sarasa's hair is longer, tied back in a ponytail, strands loosened from her enthusiasm. This hallway is well lit. For that, he is grateful; if it were any darker, he'd be able to see his reflection in the glass.

In what universe does he live where he belongs at a wedding, let alone his own? Hanan suspended time for their battle, but now he has none for which he can digest this life. Vertigo racks him, and in his dissociation, his eyes wander from Sarasa's grin to the one in the frame above—of Siete outside of a repaired building in Stardust Town, giving a thumbs-up to the camera.

More than anyone, it was Siete that had been so persistent to bring him out of his stagnant nightmare that he brought Six into an uncertain future. That knowledge comes from continuous interaction rather than a single, defining memory.

When he can't make a decision, morbid curiosity rises to speak for him. "Show me."

Song hesitates before she waves a hand for him to follow, leading him through a section of the base built during his lost time, until they end in a room that he's never seen. Half of this den is glass walls, with a door that opens outside to their much larger garden.

On the brick wall opposite from where couches rest by a fireplace is Song's absurd concept made real. It's impossible to miss. The glass frames reflect the warm orange lights of the room, like a glittering chandelier of fragmented memories he no longer has.

His feet make him follow Song to her own wedding. The happy couple dances through each frame: alone together, with Silva's family and friends, with the Eternals and the Grandcypher's crew. Six himself is in a few of them, wearing half of his mask and fanged smiles he couldn't hide behind his hand.

He runs his tongue over one of his fangs. He hated them. They marked him as a monster. But here, he smiles with them.

The largest photo of Song and Silva is the centrepiece of their happiness. In it, they stand surrounded by their friends, tumbling over each other as they tried to squeeze in.

He pores over every detail of her wedding, because he knows that beside this display, he would see a similar configuration for—

Song says something, and he turns to her without thinking. Her voice dissolves into static as he catches the first sight of Siete's lion's mane hair in a photograph by her head.

The thundering in his chest begins again. His body is weightless as it moves around her, and his thoughts are so cacophonous that it numbs him to what he's doing. The photographs here blur together; as Song and Silva had a central frame larger than the others, he and—

He and _Siete_ —

No more air can enter his lungs. His heartbeat occupies the hollow in his chest to full capacity. His hands move on their own to take the largest frame from where it hangs on the wall.

His and Siete's is the opposite of Song's scramble to include everyone. They're too captivated by each other to notice the camera. The ambient lighting dyes their white outfits purple. Siete's arms hang on Six's shoulders, and Six's own gentle smile as he tilts his head toward Siete is inviting any observer to dare and take this moment from him.

Heat traps in his gloves, making his palms sweat. The frame is worn where his right hand holds. His grip slackens.

"Six," Song warns. Her tone strikes a battle-ready chord in him, and he whirls around.

The frame slips out of his grasp and shatters against the floor, glass shards scattering like a meteor streaking across the sky. It reflects light the same way, broken or intact; in fragments, it still blinds him.

The silence that hangs between them is the same as the rests in Nio's song. His ears ring with the sound of splintering glass, enough to mask the footsteps hurrying toward the den.

Siete rushes through the doorway, but he sees the destruction too soon. His vacant expression is unnatural, and it fuels Six's first hints of panic among the white noise. The last time he saw Siete this way, he killed someone. This time, Six has done the same thing by his own hands. Siete's eyes follow a path from his fingers still curled in a grip, to the frame shattered on the ground, to the fragments of glass scratching the exposed photograph.

Pain constricts Six's chest to see self-assured _Siete_ wearing devastation as broken as the shards by his feet.

"It's fine, I just startled him," Song says. Her voice is light as air, breathing into their lungs to revive them from the depths to which they'd fallen, and the hands of the clock drag forward again. "We'll clean up here."

Siete nods, not making eye contact with either of them, and he disappears as suddenly as he arrived. She smiles to Six.

As soon as he discovered happiness, he destroyed it. Nothing that he creates by his own hands should remain intact, fated to fall to ruins—"Hey, don't pick that up, even if you're wearing gloves," Song chides.

Six's head snaps up to her. His body moved on its own to crouch and pick up the photograph from underneath the broken glass. White scratches scar the image over Six's ears and through Siete's forehead. "I'll get a broom, be careful. Want me to hold on to that?"

He shakes his head. (When Siete left, he took Six's ability to speak with him.)

"Go rest, it's been a long day." She extends her hand to help him up, and he takes it, muttering a faint apology.

* * *

Six's room is barren. He didn't have many belongings to begin with, but even his few personal effects are missing. There are extra clothes in his drawers and there are sheets on his bed; the clothes aren't all his and the sheets only smell like laundry.

This obstacle evaded him. No one has slept in this bed recently. The person the Eternals lost must sleep with Siete now.

He collapses into the chair by the desk and switches the lamp on, taking his mask off to rub at his face. He holds the photograph with both hands under the light, as if it would reveal a greater understanding of this man that looks like him, and his eyes always gravitate to his own smile before any other detail. When did this body learn to smile instead of sneer? How could it contain so much love that he was shameless in his display? Why did he allow Siete to elicit such unconditional happiness within him without fear of retribution?

He doesn't realize he's crying until teardrops land on the scratches, the fickle ink of the image smearing with it. He should destroy it, but he attempts to preserve it by wiping the tear away.

The colour smudges against his white glove, and he ceases the motion, recoiling as if he'd been burnt. Is the photo so old that it fades at his fingertips?

He wrenches open the top drawer to put it out of his sight, hoping it empty but knowing he would be foolish to believe otherwise. The contents are innocent enough, but among the writing utensils is a wrapped present and an envelope with one word.

_Siete._

The handwriting may be his own, but he feels like he's intruding on a secret between two lovers. With trembling fingers, he turns the envelope over and breaks the seal.

Inside is a note so curt that Six knows that only he could write this.

~~_Dear_ ~~ _Your_ _… "pet names" elude me. Forgive my haste in removing the word. I will leave th_ _at to you._

_Happy anniversary,_ it reads in precise letters. He flips the page over, and despite the thickness of the paper, black ink bleeds through from his deliberation in writing each letter. His handwriting has improved over the years, but not his confidence.

He cannot focus on the words themselves, lest he lose his sense of self further—but the message is too personal to ignore. _My handwriting leaves much to be desired, but as this is important, I have given my best effort. At the least, I have the rest of my life with you for these notes to improve._

_Siete, take care. Don't overwork yourself._

_I love you._

The ink runs thinnest on those three words.

He throws the envelope and the note back into the drawer before putting the photo face down.

As his final act, he opens the window of his room, fishing through his pocket for the ring. He has the strength to launch it off of Terra, and once she walks away, he would rid himself of it for eternity.

( _Eternity_ , an endless promise—his mind supplies the scenes surrounding the main photograph of their wedding. The Eternals, kissed by the setting sun and dancing. The halo of lights around their friends from the Grandcypher. The garden where they stood and shared a promise.)

Instead, he removes his left glove and slides the ring on his finger. It fits like it never meant to be anywhere else.

He lays his head on the desk, praying for the mercy of sleep to be kind.


	3. minutes

Six lifts his head through the inescapable gravity of exhaustion. He slept at his table in full uniform, and the first rays of daylight surprise him. During his time with the Eternals, he'd learnt to be more active during the day when needed, but for years, he was one with the darkness; it's to this that he attributes the lack of protest from his body, although his mind is as weary as he'd expect.

Sleep has never been kind to him. It has not been kind to him in the past, and it will not be kind to him now; added now to its repertoire is his lived nonexistence. If there was ever a man that deserved death more, Six had never met him. The only reason he has this second chance to live is to prolong his suffering, rooted in his own hubris.

He forgot to close the curtains before he slept. Shielding his face with a hand, he walks to his window. What he sees in the garden makes him double-take: Funf is among the plants, surrounded by carcasses of game that met a natural death in the surrounding forests. She joined him some mornings while he watered the flowers to practice offensive magic, but he's never seen her train by surrounding herself with death instead of maintaining the life beside her.

This must be something she started in the years he'd lost. Despite the dread in his gut, he watches.

With reverence, she lays each of the carcasses beside each other. She mutters something under her breath and waves her staff. Light comes forth, but there are no changes in the carcasses. She falls to her knees in frustration, but her head is still high as she turns her calculating gaze to every body before her.

He draws his curtains closed. He's seen enough. If he continues beside the Eternals as he is, he only creates an opening for the primal beasts they have yet to defeat.

As he drowns his room in darkness, Nio calls through the door, punctuating with a knock. "Six? Are you awake?" She hesitates between each word, afraid to hear the response.

He turns with stiff muscles, not realizing how tense he was from watching Funf. A beam of light bursts from behind him. He didn't close the curtains properly.

He tries to relax before responding. "I am."

"Good." She doesn't walk away. "We'll wait for you in the training room." Each pause between her sentences stretches on, and tension returns to fill the gaps. "Take as much time as you need."

More than he hates the loss itself, he hates that his loss forces the Eternals to treat him as if he were fragile. Underneath the rattling in his ribcage, he rises to the challenge Siete posed to him: to labour through fighting everyone and prove his worth after he's fallen this far.

He swipes his mask off the desk, slams it on his face, and storms over to the door. To Nio on the other side, he must be broadcasting every tune playing on his heartstrings to her.

"I'm ready now."

He walks past her and her worried eyes, ignoring her the same way he ignores the framed photographs in the hallways.

* * *

He announced his readiness for the battle to himself and Nio, but he still takes the long way to their indoor training room, keeping his eyes on the floor, moving one foot in front of the other. By the time he arrives, sunlight spills in through the high windows, and the other nine are waiting there.

All conversation stops when he enters the room. He fights against the skittering feeling across his skin by pulling the hood over his ears, letting them twitch in privacy.

"Good, you came," Siete says, breaking the silence and replacing it with one more awkward. Even _Six_ can see his struggle to remain affable but distant.

"I considered rejecting this pointless task," Six rumbles with annoyance. He glares beneath the mask. "The Eternals have no place for a rusted weapon."

He sees how everyone's eyes dart between the two of them, as if they were exchanging blows and not words. This isn't the first time he's taken this tone with Siete, who invokes their exasperation at the best of times, but it's the first time he's seen Siete react to it with anything but an immediate jest.

Siete's smile freezes long enough for Six to notice. He forces a laugh to melt the frost. "A rusted weapon can be restored. Even fists!"

Six rolls his eyes.

"Today, the Eternals are your whetstone! Although I don't know how useful a whetstone is for claws, but stop me before my metaphor goes even more off the rails."

"No one can stop you."

"Maybe not!" His voice is too loud. "Anyway, we're not fighting you all at the same time, that's not fair. We're going one by one. You're up, Uno," he announces, and the entire room bustles with movement, sharpening weapons and giving Six room.

He walks away before Six can protest; if the Eternals insist on learning that he cannot remain one of their number through anything other than witnessing his deteriorated state, then so be it.

Six still hasn't moved from the doorway, watching Uno take centre stage with an unfamiliar spear, twisted blue sharpened to a point. He could turn and leave, and the Eternals could find someone more suitable for their crew. His fingers twitch with the urge to escape from their expectant eyes and their calculating words, but instead of having integrity, he admits his weakness by balling his hands into fists. He returned to a body out of his control, one that found a home in these halls.

Before he meets Uno on his personal battlefield, Esser stops him to pass him his claws, concern on her face. These claws are made for his present body but not his past mind; none of them seem concerned about the possibility that he could destroy them if he were to let muscle memory take over his defective thoughts, allowing the power he'd tempered to spiral out of his control.

With a deep breath out, Six fits the unfamiliar gauntlets onto his hands, curling his fingers and watching the moonlight silver snarl up at him. He clenches his fists tight enough to feel the ring he forgot to remove strain against his silk gloves underneath, kissing the craftsmanship of these claws.

He takes his place in front of Uno, gritting his teeth. "If I lose?" he asks, low enough for only Uno to hear.

"You will," Uno agrees. He expects him to be serious about this battle, but not to be _cold_ in a way that Six hasn't seen of him since he first discovered the One-Rift Spear. It reminds him of the time he reported that skyfarers were impersonating the Eternals, taking the power of their name. "Over the years you have lost, we have developed our combat prowess both individually and with each other. Your strength is great, but with an unfocused mind, you cannot use what you have learnt."

With each word, the hairs on the back of Six's neck raise, and his heartbeat clamours for a fight. This isn't Uno. A twisted voice he thought he'd long caged after his trial with the Six-Ruin Fist sings to him. _He_ _doesn't believe in_ _you_ _r strength. He sees you_ _as lesser._

He forces himself to breathe and focus on Uno's eyes, a man that's lost too many things and now has everything to prove. His words would be a taunt from anyone else, but the Eternals' definition of kindness has always been skewed. "It's uncharacteristic of you to discourage me before we begin," Six decides on saying.

"We both know that wasn't my intention. En garde," Uno says, his only warning before he strikes.

Any remaining doubts Six had about his memory loss disappeared in the instant he dodged Uno's first strike. He loses against him within minutes, but it only renews his resolve, and he gears up to face the rest.

As Uno picks him up off the ground, he grips onto Six's hands tighter than necessary. He can't tell which was more unsettling: when Uno wouldn't meet his gaze, or that he does so now when his eyes carry a fleeting spark of regret for Six's circumstances. "This road will be difficult," Uno murmurs, "but your strength remains true. If no one else, place faith in yourself."

Six can't find it in himself to object before Uno walks away.

Increased speed and strength aren't unique to Uno; each Eternal is a greater version of themselves than he remembers, and as a finishing blow to his losses, they anticipate his movements with such accuracy that he can't deny they have years of experience fighting him. His actions grow easier to predict with each bout, irritation bubbling to the surface at his unanimous defeats and his increasing recklessness.

Only when Esser steps up after Quatre does he realize the order in which they fight him is deliberate. When the Six-Ruin Fist threatened to possess him, the Eternals engaged with him in battle; his memory is not so far gone that he's forgotten that at the end of this series of humiliations is Siete.

Like that time, the Eternals offer him cryptic platitudes, none of which he can stand. Words and intent mean nothing when he has neither the strength nor the actions to support him.

Funf is his penultimate fight, and he gets the sense that she's restraining her power, much like Nio was in their battle earlier—but whether it be out of guilt or concern, no hesitation could delay his inevitable loss. Those two, more than the rest, must be attuned to Six's growing frustration.

With Six at his limits, Siete saunters up, a stark contrast to the broken man he saw reflected in shards of glass the night before. The confident grin he directs at Six makes him scoff. _This_ is the cocksure thorn in his side that he's learnt to live with.

Siete unsheathes his sword without a word, and the slow drag of metal against metal sends a chill up his spine. The other Eternals' weapons are modified but familiar; like the silver gauntlets on Six's own hands, this sword is unlike any weapon he's ever seen Siete wield. This is not one for battle, but instead something of legend that he would summon from ether for intimidation. From guard to blade, its colour is a purple so deep it would be black in the shadows, and yet it reflects the rays of sunlight streaming through the windows instead of absorbing them.

When Six doesn't ready for their bout in return, Siete brightens. "You like it?" He sounds as proud as he always is about his swords, but with a fondness for more than its craftsmanship. "You helped a lot with this bad boy!"

"You're all constructing quite the mythology around the man I became," he says, casting a sideways glance at the rest of the Eternals. "At what point did I become so proficient with blades as to assist Siete in creating one?"

Siete tilts it back and forth, letting it catch the light and drawing Six's attention once more. With a bashful smile, he says while scratching his cheek, "I mean, there's _one_ sword you got really good at handling."

Six tilts his head, his confusion building as Quatre groans from off to the side. "What? How does that tell me what role I played in its creation?"

"It's… It's a dirty joke, Six!" Song's voice carries over Quatre's insistent groaning.

He frowns—and then he whips around with wide eyes, coming face-to-face with Siete's mischievous smirk in place of his bashfulness. The heat of embarrassment crashes through his body as Siete tilts his chin downwards at the subject of his obscene joke. _This_ is the Siete he's used to.

Unlike with the rest, he refuses to engage with Siete in a ritual of chivalry before their bout; he charges in, claw's points aimed at his throat. Siete sidesteps him with a laugh. "You _really_ didn't like that, did you?"

"Are you incapable of facing me without resorting to cheap provocation? You disgust me," he says, twisting his body to follow through with his counterattack against Siete's parry.

Siete never hides his enjoyment from riling him up, during and outside of battle. He's made it obvious since they first fought in the Karm hamlet. "But it's so _fun_ getting you all worked up, wink wink!" Siete's carefree whine is a dizzying juxtaposition to how he puts his full power into every swing of his blade without catching his breath. The tip of the blade scrapes Six's arm, scratching through his uniform, as another one of Siete's strikes turns into a near miss.

Six is sloppy with his next attack, and Siete takes advantage of his misstep to catch his wrist. He swings the sword around so the blade's edge grazes Six's exposed back; at the same time, Six grabs Siete's arm with his free hand to prevent him from pushing further. The grip around his wrist is unyielding, but Siete's manic grin softens to a doting smile as he nudges the sword toward himself, forcing Six flush against him.

He chokes out in protest when Siete leans in so close that their lips almost brush. "You know, Six," he croons, tilting his head. Six can't look from his bright eyes that flicker down to Six's mouth, the red glow from battle's exertion that dusts his cheeks. His skin ignites. "I'm insulted that you think I'd _ever_ go easy on you."

Before Six can take another breath, Siete tears away to kick him in the gut and sends him flying.

As he tumbles along the cold floor, his jaw clacking with each collision, Siete's sing-song voice teases him again. "No memory loss as an excuse! You should know I'm always like this, right, Six?"

With a growl, Six rights himself and closes the distance between them without thinking. While he makes it a habit to keep Siete at arm's length in everyday life, it's the opposite in battle, keeping close during spars to give Siete problems manoeuvring his blades. Here, Siete blocks everything Six learnt to use against him, ready with a counter-attack before Six can react to his own missed strike.

The others were two steps ahead of his every move, but Siete decided this match from the second he walked up and took his place across from Six.

Sparring with Siete has always been a dance, a give and take that leaves Six dizzy at its conclusion. Siete's words are playful, but his fighting intent is as serious as life and death, and true to his word, he isn't holding back; during their spar, Six collects enough cuts and scrapes to compensate for the few he'd received from the others.

Six grits his teeth. Fuelled by desperation, he abandons all grace to land even one hit—but Siete is like the wind, there one second and gone the next, never tiring. Six can only fend off his well-calculated blows for as long as he has been because his mind is so clouded that his body moves for him, habit etched in his muscles instead of his thoughts.

The decisive blow comes when Six tries to sweep his feet in a last-ditch effort to gain an advantage. Siete knocks the pommel into his gut as he drops into a crouch, and as he registers the attack, he notices an inscription on its cross-guard through Siete's loose fingers.

He can recognize his own stilted, deliberate handwriting. His breath catches before the collision can take it out of his lungs.

That blow should have been preventable. Instead, he accepts his fate to consider another; he lies on the floor and stares at the high ceiling with Siete's shadowed blade cutting the sunlight. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, and when he opens them again, the blade is gone. In its place is Siete's extended hand, clad in a glove as dark as the blade.

"Good bout," Siete says. The grin in his voice makes him want to swipe at his legs, but with the way Siete watches him, the idea isn't worth giving weight. He grabs Siete's hand and pulls himself upright.

Siete's already started talking about something else, but Six fumbles on his thoughts as he blurts out, "Siete."

He stops when he hears his name. "What's up?" His mischievous grin now makes him the man Six remembers, and he doesn't want to shatter the only familiar thing he's seen since his return.

Underneath the mask, he opens his mouth, but no words come out. _Closure_ is an injury that the Eternals have inflicted upon him, but treating that wound for himself would open one of Siete's own.

Siete's expression grows strained. "Six, I know you're not one for conversation, but—"

"What did I inscribe on the hilt of your blade?"

The Siete he recognizes shatters before him, becoming the stranger with the sad eyes once more. "How'd you even _see_ that? Let alone recognize your handwriting," he mutters.

"Do you really think I wouldn't see an attack that close?" He crosses his arms to stop his hands from shaking, but his breath comes out in a stutter. Siete is avoiding the question.

"Not what I meant, but… damn." Siete laughs, but it falls flat. "Here I was, hoping I'd be fast enough that you wouldn't."

"Then don't use it in the first place."

After another pause, Siete asks, "Are you sure?" He says it in the way the other Eternals have been treating him, as if Six would break apart at the first mention of the life he lost. It strikes him that of all people, he wouldn't expect blatant, condescending sympathy from _Siete_ _._

His irritation from the last hour reaches its peak. " _Show_ me."

Six doesn't realize how quiet the room is until Siete passes him the sword with a grimace.

The sound of Six's gloves tracing over its blade is louder than his own breathing. He turns the sword over to examine every inch of its marksmanship, delaying the inevitable. Time slows as he approaches the hilt, frozen when he reads the four words etched upon it, already familiar in Six's vain attempts to banish it from his mind.

_Yours, forever and always._

He closes his fingers around the hilt to cover the inscription, the words uneven by his own lack of experience. This sword is made with the shape of his palm as much as it is for Siete's, and it weighs no more than his claws. He cannot drop it like the photo frame. His hands have found a home in the lingering warmth of Siete's.

" _Well_ ," Siete drawls, getting his attention. Six's grip tightens around the hilt, but it doesn't bring him any comfort as Siete continues. "I made a set of swords based on the Eternals a couple of years ago. You _could_ use any of the Heaven's Mercies in battle if you wanted, but it was more like a fun weekend hobby. Everyone either has their own or they're hanging in the hall leading to my workshop. Swords on the wall are _great_ interior design, by the way."

Nonsense spills out of his mouth to keep him busy as he avoids Six's stare. He bites his lip as he looks at how the sword fits in Six's hand.

"That one was yours."

He breathes those words out with so much fondness that Six wants to thrust forward with the blade in his hand and twist it in Siete's chest, if only to end his immeasurable pain. "I got that," Six spits, unsure from where within him the sudden, acidic vitriol comes. He shoves the sword at Siete and steps away from him.

If the Eternals keep him in their ranks, Six will continue to be an inescapable burden. More than that, Siete insists that he loves a monster like him, further chaining him and the Eternals to someone inseparable from his past. It would be easy to give in, admit the feelings he'd avoided giving a name, and reciprocate Siete's misplaced affection. But the expectations upon his shoulders are too great to allow himself the potential of happiness if it meant the risk of absolute destruction once more.

He turns to the rest of the Eternals and lets his low voice carry, ignoring how his throat constricts with anxiety until he can't breathe. "As I did not earn a single victory, I have determined that for our best interests, I will be resigning."

"Moron!" Sarasa shouts over the end of his sentence.

Quatre snorts. "Takes one to know one."

"That's why I _know_ Six is a moron! An idiot! We already said, we ain't gettin' rid of you!" She cackles, crossing her arms.

Uno nods. "Your battle ended with defeat, but in the journey to your loss, I could sense the power you honed. So long as you refrain from overthinking, your body remembers combat with us." He offers a strained smile that reflects in Nio's and Funf's faces when Six looks around the room; he recognizes it for what it is, twisted with determination that one could only forge through personal failure.

The attempt to reassure Six that the Eternals understand his habit of overthinking only sends him further over the edge, far from the comfort Uno must intend for it to bring.

"Yeah!" Sarasa yells. "I had to play dirty with you and _think!_ The you from that long ago isn't used to me _thinking_!"

"Guys, leave some of the motivational words for me!" The cheer is back in Siete's voice.

The group that Six sees now, encouraging him to stay, insisting against his self-imposed removal, was the goal for the group he remembers. How he shed the ghosts of his past to be present for a potential future is a mystery, but the punishment he receives for doing so is not.

"Fine," he snaps, puncturing the amicable air of the room. He surrenders, but not before giving them a warning. "But when the world collapses and becomes one with the core of destruction itself, remember who it is that you allowed to roam free."

The training room is empty but for his march, a hall of spectres watching him leave.

* * *

For the rest of the day, he avoids contact with the others, resorting to creeping around for food when the base has gone dark. The only difference between now and when he first joined the Eternals is that now, everyone knows him too well; half of them leave him alone, while the other half try to nudge him back into routine.

He can't tell which is worse. He avoids the thought until exhaustion takes him from the conscious realm for another night.

The knocks on his door the next morning are more efficient in making him alert, less kind than Nio's of yesterday, threatening to break through the wood.

Six would never get adequate rest. He stands from the ground where he slept to open the door.

On the other side is Quatre, whose greeting is to shove rags and an old bucket at him. "Memory loss doesn't exempt you from chores. You're on bath duty this week."

Six watches him stalk off through the hallway, passing Siete's room as Siete steps out. He snickers with a genuine amusement that Six hasn't seen from him the eternity since he returned as less than himself. "Get to it, those chores won't do themselves," Siete says, hoarse with sleep, and Six frowns as he takes the cleaning materials and goes to the communal bath.

The existence of chores for the Eternals means that this base is more than a temporary resting place. As he scrubs the floor, the harsh cleaning agents sting at his nose, and an ancient voice croaks to him from the corner of his skull: _R_ _emember that_ _no one else will take you. The Eternals will always be as dysfunctional as you are_ _, and you are their worst_ _._

Compared to other tasks, he can stomach cleaning the baths. He runs the water so hot that he can't tell whether his inability to breathe is because of the steam or the anxiety. This is a menial and beneficial task to execute alone for the people he no longer knows, yet it only gives him more time to ruminate on the group he sees now.

Even given his situation, the Eternals show him kindness beyond expectation. It grants him no relief. The burden that his older self was crushes him into the ground with expectations he cannot meet.

He cannot be that person for them again. Once, he was, and then they watched what happened when he allowed himself to forget his past—he received punishment, forced to relive his sins, while those in his life that could still move forward tried to bring him with them.

Cleaning doesn't take long, but he allows himself to ruminate, reminding himself to never be too comfortable. He steps out, and his hopes for an uninterrupted retreat to his room are crushed by Okto passing him in the hallway.

"You have not been shirking your duties," he says, nodding in approval, and Six prepares himself for a long-winded lecture about maintenance and personal health. "Chores may be dull, but they are necessary for both the harmony of our space and the people that live within it. I sought you for one such task—the flowers remain untended."

His flowers. He'd forgotten, amidst the chaos of his circumstances, about his flowers. "...Thanks, I guess," he mutters as the corners of Okto's lips turn upwards, and he makes his way to their backyard.

The path from their personal quarters to the garden has rooms he doesn't remember, but the stairs are the same number of steps and the kitchen is in the same place. The early risers are there eating breakfast, greeting him as he scampers past them.

Esser turns to the sound of the back door opening as she's yawning, watering the flowers, and her ears perk up when she sees him. "Okto fetched you?"

He cannot keep his voice steady as he looks out at the garden. "After I cleaned the baths. I have forgotten neither my chores, nor my flowers."

The foliage stretches out into a vast field, dappled with every colour imaginable. Their greenhouse, once too small to fit more than two people inside, could now hold all ten of the Eternals with room to spare. He sees a variety of fruits and vegetables through the glass, some of which he doesn't even recognize.

When he turns back to Esser, she smiles. "These newer flowers here are what Funf and I wanted to try growing. We keep them near the ones Lennah sent from your wedding, next to the ones from Song's and Silva's."

The world spirals beneath his feet again, making him lightheaded. "You all like reminding me, don't you?"

Her smile fades as she passes him the watering can. She directs her gaze to the flowers. "Once we discovered you were involved with Siete, you two no longer went to pains to hide it from us."

He grips onto the metal handle. The ring around his finger grinds into his skin.

Wearing his gloves is as necessary as wearing his mask when everyone can so easily read his intentions. The version of Six that now inhabits this body was only beginning to reach friendly terms with them. The Six they lost was far beyond that; with their uncomfortable familiarity, he wants to distance himself instead of close the gap again.

As easy as it would be to relinquish the Eternals of his existence, leaving them so he can pursue the primal beast himself isn't a possibility, and neither is a mission for the other nine without his personal experience from dying to Hanan. He never wanted to be an Eternal, either as one of its weapons or as a living presence—but when faced with the most important duty since accepting the name _Six_ , he cannot abandon them.

"Six," Esser says, grabbing his wrist and breaking him out of his thoughts. He jolts, looking at his hand. She walked alongside him in silence while he was ruminating. "The watering can has been… empty for some time."

He breathes out. His chest caves in. "Yeah."

She stays with the flowers as he refills the watering can, and when he comes back, he tries to focus on giving them the correct amount, hoping that the other flowers he may have drowned are salvageable. Esser still understands when he wants quiet, and she walks alongside him without prompting him further. When he finishes, she takes the watering can from him, not stopping him for more conversation so he can return inside.

The world continues turning. This time, no one in the kitchen does more than lift their head and greet him before embarking on their missions for the day.

Like yesterday, he finds himself in the training room. His claws are still in his empty bedroom, but he doesn't want to go back for them. He needs to release the unsettled, dissonant energy in his body as soon as he can. He summons the training dummies and sets them to the highest difficulty without wrappings to protect his bare hands.

His body moves in unexpected ways once he finds a rhythm free of thought, and he hates that rigorous movement is the only way to relieve him from his own racing mind. It reminds him of the first year he spent with the Eternals before he and Siete discovered his father's journal, when all he knew was restless energy in a base built on an animal known for its slow and steady advance.

Six spars until his body protests, but he refuses to surrender. He gives himself no choice but to fight, moving forward until his muscles strain with every action, and still he presses onward with bleeding knuckles.

Nio finds him before the sun sets. The frown on her face seems perpetual now. She summons her harp, positioning her hands over the strings, and stays quiet as she floats over to him.

Six despawns the training dummies and rolls his neck. "Don't you hate confrontation?" His voice is tired even to his own ears, but stopping is not an option.

"Only when unnecessary." Nio's shield springs to life around her, and she plucks strings without waiting for him to respond.

Guilt lines her movements, and that alone is enough for him to want to end training for the day, but it's more important for him to regain his battle sense than his memories. It doesn't escape him that the Eternals' priority seems to be honing him to become their weapon once again instead of returning him to an emotionally functional state.

They engage with fighting intent, but Nio's magic is both less intrusive than he's used to, skirting around his consciousness to request entry, and more aggressive than he's ever known. The music she uses to weaken him and strengthen herself makes her physical attacks more devastating, targeted at weaknesses he wasn't aware he had. Unlike two days ago, she shows no hesitation today.

By this point, he's been sparring alone for hours. With a real risk of being hurt and hurting others, he still defaults to the instinctual actions that his battle sense dictates to him, whispering to _let go_ in his ears. Every one of Nio's successful parries and landed hits makes him further want to surrender this body to the man that once had it, the man who he would become only after travelling a long road that he no longer deserved to travel.

Nio looked tired before they even began fighting, but each win against Six spurs him to face her again, and she doesn't stop him. Once, he stumbles trying to stand; Nio stifles a cough at the same time, and he realizes that he can only hurt himself so far. He trapped someone else in his trajectory of self-harm yet again.

She knocks him to the ground within seconds of the realization, and he stays there with her final note hanging in the air. Dusk approaches in the high windows of the training room, and, chest heaving, he wheezes, "Enough."

Nio stops levitating, dropping in front of him to catch her breath. Her harp clatters once on the floor before she can dematerialize it.

"You've done enough," he says, quieter this time, echoing the words he told her less than a week ago at the inn. They feel just as hollow today coming from the same heartless mind. "Rest."

"You too," she responds. She looks at him properly now, taking in his restless appearance with knowing eyes. "Try to eat something."

She leaves ahead of him. He waits until the sun goes down and the evening stars peer through the windows to pick himself up. Everything aches, but the dull pain distracts him from thinking, and the shower spits water at him like pins and needles.

* * *

In the kitchen, he overhears Siete, Quatre, and Funf mention that dinner isn't ready, so he sneaks past and tells his stomach to wait a few more hours. On the way to his room, he passes Song's door.

He stares.

The Eternals insist that he can talk to any of them, but he's only comfortable connecting with three at most. Song is one, a kindred spirit in power and isolation, and while she's farther ahead than he can imagine, he wants to talk with someone that once understood.

He doesn't know how long he's been staring at her door before she sneaks up behind him. "Something interesting about the door?" He jumps, playing it off as a step to the side, and she grins at him. "Oh, right, there's been a lot of renovations since you… well, last remembered."

He blurts out, "That's what I'm here to talk about."

Her hand on the doorknob stills as her eyes flicker to Siete's door. Dread sinks in his gut, and through the soreness, blood pumps to his muscles in preparation to run away. But the moment is so brief that he must have imagined it; when he looks back, she's smiling and inviting him into her room.

Song has always gone through the effort of making her room more personal, with more pictures and personal effects than practical items. The bows she's equipped over the years hang above her photographs with Silva, trophies above trophies. She sits on the bed, and Six hesitates before he joins her.

"Dinner's soon," she teases. "We could make this a family meeting—"

"Spare me," he interrupts, not willing to unpack the joke.

She must know why Six is here, but in her room decorated with her private contentment, he cannot ruin her mood. She is at the place he was at before reverting—happiness with a significant other and friends she trusted.

He feels foolish. He clenches his fists. He sighs. He looks at the door and considers abandoning his questions.

Instead, to trap himself inside the torture of his own making, he starts with, "None of you will remove me from the Eternals."

Song's shock doesn't seem exaggerated. "Never."

"Then, what would become of all of you, should you allow me to succumb to the power flowing through my veins?" The words spill out of his mouth before he can stop them, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "If you encourage me to listen to the habits of my body rather than regaining the mind I've lost?"

"'All of you' includes you too, Six. All of _us_. We're still a team. And we have faith that you know your path. You're way past that. Give yourself some credit."

Song's faith, more than anything, defined her—faith for a better future, faith in those around her when lifting her own head in the face of adversity grew difficult. It shines now in her eyes as she fights for Six, a man that doesn't know where he wants to stand. Watching the stars in his eyes, he grits out, "How do you know that being reverted to this state doesn't mean that everything else reverts?"

"You might think you're giving in to the darkness, but you haven't dwelled there in years. And like Nio said, your heart is just tangled with the magic of the primal beast, not _lost_." Her brows furrow before she whispers her next words. "Besides, you're still wearing the wedding ring, aren't you?"

Her reminder makes the gold band sitting on his left ring finger sing with victory, and he stands fast enough to make the blood rush to his head. Even with his mask on, even with his uniform covering him from head to toe, he's so _easy_ to read.

He storms over to the bedroom door, and then Song's voice halts him in his tracks. Her voice has always been light as air, clear as a spring brook. But it's that same quality that makes her words pierce through the chaos of his mind—accurate, precise, and scathing. "I'm sorry that we know you well, Six," she says with finality, letting him leave.

The shiver trickling down his spine is not because she's disingenuous, but because he cannot deny how intertwined his life was with theirs. "I don't know who _I_ am anymore."

"There's nine people that could remind you, but..." She bites her lip, debating on her next words. "One that could do it best."

For a fleeting moment before he engaged in this conversation, he considered joining that night's dinner instead of hiding away—but its conclusion makes him seethe with self-loathing, and he spends another night eating in darkness.

* * *

The note slipped under his door is white, a spotlight spiking the darkness. Six knows without looking that the sun has yet to rise, and if he strains his ears, he can hear Funf practicing her necromancy again.

He woke up just in time to relive a trauma he doesn't remember. He crawls across the floor to pick up the note before any sunbeams can shine down on it and blind him.

_We're debrief_ _ing_ _to_ _investigat_ _e_ _Arawo_ _in three days._ Siete's handwriting loops and curls, but there are no ink splatters, and there is no variation in his line weight. He put too much care into what he wanted to say. _Bring what you remember about_ _Hanan_ _and your best smile! :)_

He frowns at the smiley face, but as if Siete can predict his reaction, he next writes: _Don't give the letter that look, nothing wrong with sending a message with a smile! :)_

_:) But t_ _ell me if you need more_ _time_ _to sit on it. It's a_ _bit soon_ _, but, well... it's urgent._ His handwriting is sloppier now, like he's more confident about what he plans to write. _I know you'll_ _be_ _in the training rooms_ _all day_ _again, but remember to eat something. The other Eternals will try fighting against you if they see you in there, so stay on your toes!_ ~~ _I l_~~

_Siete_

Siete made a valiant effort to scratch out those letters, but the words that should follow are unmistakable. He doesn't know why Siete wasted ink crossing it out instead of rewriting the message, but he can tell that by the end, the letter was written in a rush from a man that wanted to knock on his door like the others had the past two mornings and thought better of it.

He leaves the note on his desk and goes to the training room to distract himself. It's useless, because Siete clings to his consciousness like a parasite, no matter how hard he tries to ignore him.

Three more days to survive through before they can handle business. Three more days for Six to pretend that he can function when he wants to surrender his position as _Six of the Eternals_ and destroy the primal beast alone before it can destroy them. Three more days of knowing that he's too much of a coward to leave.

The most attractive option is to hide in his room until the day of the meeting, but he knows that his skills won't return by fighting the training dummies alone. He needs to spar with the others. The Eternals stay at the base more often; there's always one person who sees him and fights with him for as long as they can. His body is well-trained enough that it reacts for him, which is both his and the Eternals' intentions when they push him this hard. When he overthinks his counterattacks, he loses momentum.

More of them join him in groups instead of as individuals during the days leading up to the debrief. The nature of their looming mission is such that they would never fight alone; the Eternals pair up with him against others so he can regain his battle sense in tandem with people beside him. They have little information on their next opponent, nor is Six equipped to analyse the voice in his mind during his death, but they almost failed to restrain their first enemy with half of their numbers. They need to be more cohesive than ever before.

Each pair learns to fight with a memory-regressed Six as much as he's learning to fight with them. They don't hide how difficult it is, but they have no intention of using those observations as discouragement. Instead, they share their experiences of fighting beside him, pointing out how the Eternals' styles have changed over time during lulls in attacks.

He despises more that they haven't let him go with each suggestion they offer. The state of his corpse is such that they still have confidence to continue dragging it around—but more than anything, he hates that his sentimental, hopeful heart is stronger than the burden of his duty in convincing him to hold on tight.

During these group spars, every team he's on loses. No one has the gall to voice the correlation out loud.

The Eternals before him are foreign. They understand his and each other's boundaries too well, knowing not to comment on shortcomings despite being this obvious and _dangerous_ to their operation. They are compassionate enough to extend a hand to him every time he gets hit, healing him before he's cognisant of his own damage.

Song swoops down from her perch to fly him out of the way of an attack he can't see, and she gives him a thumbs up as she shoots her arrows while flying backwards.

Does he want to be the person they all think he is?

His past is unforgettable. When he looks in the mirror, he sees scars new to this mind but old to this body, the scars he's never seen before, the scars he's carried since he was young.

Lost in thought, someone delivers a blow that knocks him to the ground. Funf extends her hand not a second later, and he stares at it. She's too small. She can't be strong enough to pull her up. She will always be the child—except in part, she is no longer. He swallows the apprehension and grabs her hand, and magical healing energy envelops him through their point of contact.

"You're thinking too much," she says with a huff, waving her staff at him. "Just trust me!"

He grits his teeth underneath his mask. Overcome with frustration at her tone of voice and at himself, he dodges Esser's next barrage of bullets, hands moving in perplexing ways to deflect the ones that are too fast to avoid.

"See?" Funf grins at him. "Not so much thinking!"

Every Eternal has told him that same thing by this point, and each time he hears it, he hates it for how _right_ they are. For his entire life, his only company had been his thoughts. Six is better than he used to be about living with others, but not as good as those around him imply. From the Six-Ruin Fist's failed possession, he knows that surrendering to the emotions he tried to hold back made him _stronger_ , as a fighter and as a soul _._

Sarasa swings her axe, and she concentrates her ensuing shockwave on Funf, more precise than the indiscriminate destruction that Ground Zero once was. Without thinking, he pushes Funf—

_A dark room, him and Siete. Hushed_ _voices_ _,_ _suffocating_ _dread alleviated by Siete's hand in his. He can't hear_ _what_ _he's saying, nor does he look at Siete._

_Their words are unintelligible murmurs_ _as_ _Siete_ _rubs circles into the back of his_ _hand_ _._ _He kisses Six's temple and stays there, lips pressed against his skin_ _, as Six releases a confession into the_ _room_ _, one that makes Siete laugh and hold him closer._

He takes a deep breath in, and the air stings as it goes into his lungs, barbed with the torture of consciousness.

His head is bent at an awkward angle against the wall of the training room. An ache spreads throughout his entire body, leaving no cell of his untouched. Unlike the other times the others threw him to the ground, this instance stops the fight.

He struggles to breathe. He gropes around for his mask and slams it back on his face, ignoring the sting of the metal against his skin. From inside his sanctuary, his tinny breathing reverberates like he's a caged animal.

He turns his head to the others. They've lowered their weapons. Funf's healing magic has no effect on him; everything must be psychological, he realizes with a sick laugh. "Six?" Funf bites her thumbnail.

"Fine," he mumbles through shaky lips. He sounds worse than his body feels. "Fine. I—remembered something."

"You remembered something?" Esser asks, putting her guns in their holsters.

He hesitates. The moment was intimate in his vulnerability. He shared his worries. Siete met him where he was. Siete _cared_. "Don't—worry about it," he decides on saying, crawling into an upright position and bringing his knees to his chest.

Sarasa puts a hand on her hips. "So if we beat Six up enough, will he just get his memories back?"

"That doesn't seem like the most reliable method," Esser hurries to say.

"Let's not do that," Six mutters, and he staggers to stand. "Regardless, I cannot call it a true memory." The more he tries to recall details of the scene, the less clear everything becomes, until he's not sure he remembered anything at all. "It was a feeling. A sensation."

He holds his hand, moving his thumb in the same steady circle against the back of his hand.

"Better something than nothing." Song lands next to him, bow hanging by her side. "That means there's a chance that whatever Hanan did to your memories, it's only locked away. Not lost forever."

Would he want those memories back? Would he want to remember all the times he was vulnerable, where he'd allowed himself to love, only to fall apart again? The man they lost cared too much about the Eternals and subsequently forgot about the burden he was fated to carry.

The Eternals are excellent fighters, and he trusts that even the youngest members can handle themselves. But he'd taken that hit for Funf in a practice spar on instinct, and the reason he suffered this loss was because he took a life-ending hit for Nio.

The concept of protecting things he held close to him wasn't foreign. The stranger in this body learnt to trust the Eternals enough to lend his assistance both in battle and, on good days, outside of it—but he doesn't consider himself to be at the point where he would _die_ for them.

He doesn't know who he's meant to be anymore, but everyone else has a consistent, if not appalling, concept of who he was.

It would be easy to give in, he thinks as the others sit in front of him on the training room floor, alternating between trying to talk to him and conversing among themselves. It would be easy, he thinks as he stands to leave them behind and take a shower, to give in.

He's lived his whole life being told who he was—a monster, an Eternal, a lost cause. This would be the most benevolent interpretation of who he was, and yet the worst he's received thus far.


	4. hours

The mind forgets, but the body remembers.

He fills the three days before their next meeting in ways that make him numb, with only rote actions and chores to occupy the hours when the sun is in the sky. The three nights, however, bring him turmoil that he cannot escape. He was always a child of the night, shrouded in shadows, but sleep was never a part of his domain. When he is alone with the void of his loss, he tosses and turns in a bed that smells like someone he wants to ignore.

It's been years since he made a habit of sleeping on the floor, but now, its discomfort is comfortable in its familiarity—and even then, his plan fails when the hard surface keeps him awake enough to face his thoughts. This body must not know how to sleep anywhere but a bed. The revelation offers him little relief.

In the darkness, he has nothing to think of but the impossible notion that Siete, leader of the Eternals, Star Sword Sovereign, wanted to be by the side of a broken man at best and a monster at worst. Six doesn't know what _love_ is. The only love he knew either left him or betrayed him from the very moment he was born. Is love the same as his morbid fascination with Siete and his persistence, from the first time they met?

He rolls over and closes his eyes, but burnt into the back of his eyelids are scenes of their private dinners, where Siete's only teasing was about his reticence to engage with staff and his silent enthusiasm for new food and never once about finding the two of them somewhere quiet for Six to eat without his mask. He clenches his fist and his mind supplies images of what his gloved hand would feel like in Siete's, squeezing back in encompassing warmth like the sun. It is here in the dark that he recalls the times since his return when Siete would look to him, beaming with affection, only for him to rein it in until all that would exist between them was guilt.

Six has endured psychological torture more gruesome from his own mind than what his situation has to offer, but the one thing that would break him was always going to be kindness, unconditional and irrational. Siete's obscene joke might been mockery, but he was still too open, too gentle in the moments following their bout, when their pulses could settle and Six no longer had the curtain of irritation to mask the feelings he'd been trying to hide for so long.

He's a version of himself that he doesn't recognize when, in the late hours of the night, he stands from his position curled up on the floor to wander over to Siete's room, next to his. This is not his hand moving to knock before he can decide against disturbing Siete this late, and this cannot be his relief when Siete opens the door a second later, like he's been waiting. The smile on his face doesn't reach his eyes, cautiousness illuminated by the faint warm lights of the hallway dimmed for sleep hours. He doesn't look like he's slept since Six returned, the bags under his eyes prominent even under a pair of reading glasses he's never seen before.

"I can't sleep," Six confesses to Siete, his executioner, a man to hear his final words.

Under the moonlight, Siete smiles a smile like something out of his dreams, and then he steps aside. Six trusts neither his words nor his actions, and he trusts his racing thoughts least of all. But despite the turmoil racking his body, his pulse is steady as he watches Siete take his glasses off and pinch the bridge of his nose, putting them on the bedside table. He lays on the side of the bed farther from the door, glancing at him before closing his eyes.

Six knows he's meant to occupy that empty space next to him, safe in his arms. He stares at it, holding his breath. He cannot look anywhere else. There are too many glass frames reflecting pale moonlight, and he is as blind to their contents as he is to his lost years.

He leans against the wall, sliding down until he's sitting on the ground. At this angle, he can see exactly one photo in its frame, sitting on Siete's dresser—Six himself in a turtleneck, a frown on his face as he looks up at a topiary penguin. In the photo, Siete is nowhere to be found.

He tears his eyes away just as Siete cracks an eye open. "Are you keeping watch over me?" he asks, sing-song voice dancing around the edges like his usual, teasing smile, but with a fondness that makes Six's stomach curl.

"Why would I?"

Siete closes his eye, and his eyebrows furrow. There's a delay between his mouth opening and what he says next. "You kept trying to before I could convince you to actually, you know… _sleep_ whenever I invited you to my room. You'd sit with me for a while before I fell asleep, and then you'd force yourself to stay awake. Said you wanted to watch over me during the night." Siete's murmurs grow so quiet, weighed by tiredness, that Six can discern no emotion from it.

With almost five years of being by Six's side, Siete should be numb to his idiosyncrasies. He should be _tired_ of them, ready to abandon Six as he himself had in this state—but _still_ , Siete is comfortable being open in the darkness beside him like this.

The door is right next to Six. He could walk out, leave him be, and quit the farce that they've created for themselves. He has the power to end this here. He's fooled Siete once already. It would be cruel to let Siete believe this arrangement can work again.

Siete reaches for him halfway, like he always does. But this time, he's reaching into a fire that's burnt him once before, leaving him as ashes from which nothing can rise. "I am not the same as the one that inhabited this body until recently," Six mutters.

"You're acting like you're a completely different person instead of just the one from a few years back." Siete exhales out his nose, and it sounds like a laugh. Six should know better than to be taken seriously by Siete, of all people—but before he can resign himself to the mood swings that the man enjoys putting him through, he continues with, "You really _are_ the same as I remember from when we first started dating."

"You would know best, wouldn't you." Six tries to fill the words with derision, but his exhaustion seeps into every syllable. "I cannot accept your insistence that I once had happiness without punishment. _This_ is the punishment for that happiness. You cannot expect me to meet you where you are. It is too far."

Siete's chuckle in reaction is incomprehensible enough to baffle him out of his next thoughts. "Oh, now you _really_ sound like you did on our first date."

In an instant, heat floods Six's body, and humiliation prickles at his skin. He makes a strangled noise that elicits another laugh out of Siete.

"Was that too forward?"

"Since when have you cared about being too forward? I can still remember a number of years with you, and in none of them have you any shame."

"You're right," Siete says. "Sort of. I'll go to bed then, and I'll let you watch me in silence like a creep until I pass out. Sound good?"

"I'm not a creep." He frowns. Siete is too good at steering the conversation back from the unknown.

"Okay, but _I'm_ not the one sneaking into someone else's room to watch them sleep."

"Why would I look at you?"

"You don't have to lie. I _am_ an attractive man."

"Any attractiveness of yours evaporates when you open your mouth."

Siete's mouth hangs open, and Six can see him cycle through different responses before deciding on, "So it was non-zero in the first place?"

Why Siete thought _that_ would have been the least offensive response, he doesn't know. "You're insufferable," Six says, but he still can't bring himself to leave, nor can he deny it, to his irritation. "How all of you can look me in the eye and tell me I was involved with _you_ escapes me."

"It's a funny story." Siete says it like an invitation. The conversation can go either way.

Compared to the Siete he knows, this Siete is too good at reading Six's mind, always giving him an opening for escape while being mindful of his limits. It frustrates him beyond belief how he keeps finding his way back to Siete, but when Siete beckons him—to fights, to crew dinners, to speak in the shadows—he finds himself there before he knows it.

(This is how Siete recruited him. This is why Six kept coming back, and this is why Six was— _is_ so drawn to him. Maybe love wasn't so hard with a man like Siete.)

Since Six's death, this is the least awkward Siete has been outside of spars. Habit is ingrained into both of their bodies; Siete will reach for his hand or lean in to kiss him, but he always stops himself with an apology before trying to play it off.

All Six has to do is meet him halfway. Under the cover of darkness, where they're one with the shadows, he could pretend to live this inherited life. He could learn to love, again and again, until the all-consuming blaze reduces him to the earth whence he came.

"Tell me," Six says, lighting the match for his demise. "If this is a dream, you should go so far as to give me false hope before I wake to face my harsh reality."

The silence that falls between them is uncomfortable. Even as he finishes saying it, he knows that his response was wrong, whether in intent or the way he worded it.

Siete exhales, breath leaking between his lips to stall for time before responding. "If this is only a dream for you, then I have to be the best me I can be. So you can sleep as peacefully as you can."

He can hear the smile in Siete's voice, but it doesn't mask that it was born of sadness, and it makes Six shut his eyes tight.

"But before I do anything"—Siete breaks him out of his thoughts, over and over—"would you mind if I sat next to you?"

"Stay in bed," Six croaks. "There is no reason for you to lower yourself to my level."

Siete's sigh rattles from his chest, stuttering out of his mouth before ending in a humourless laugh. He slides off the bed and sits on the floor across from him, leaning against the bed frame. Six can't meet his eyes, instead looking behind him and out the window. The moon is high in the sky.

"I'm gonna start telling you something now," Siete says, with a joking tone.

"You've never given me warnings before assaulting me with your drivel."

"Seems like you need it for this." Six's eyes dart over to the silhouette of Siete's grin, and he can imagine his cheek dimpling, the curve of his eyes into crescents like the moon. He turns his eyes back to the window. He thinks the light of the sun is much easier to swallow when it's being reflected. "For starters," Siete says, "when I first asked you out, you said no before I could blink."

The absurdity of the situation startles a chuckle out of Six, but self-deprecating jokes have always been a brief flash of Siete's repertoire, so sudden that one could forget he'd said it at all.

"I thought, 'well, I fucked _th_ _at_ one up'. I thought that a lot of times when we were dating. But you stayed with me somehow—Oh, wait," Siete stops himself, glancing away. "Ah, I'm already off topic.

"The date…" he pauses. Out of the corner of Six's eyes, he sees him tilt his head, his toothy grin replaced with one more contemplative. "I asked if I should leave you alone for a bit after you rejected me. At worst, I didn't wanna break up the Eternals over us being awkward around each other. You said yes, so… I left you alone."

Siete's words don't stir concrete memories, but his pulse quickens with blood that finds a home in his unfamiliar veins. His skin, hot to the touch, urges him to lean closer to Siete for warmth; it holds him like a cage, whittling him down until he would be so weak as to give into habit.

He raises his head, resisting the voice, and Siete's smile grows when they make eye contact. "And then," Siete whispers, his contained laughter leaking through, "you came back a week later, yelling at me about how my romantic words swayed you."

Six makes a displeased noise. "Dreams aren't realistic, but put effort into making this believable."

"Swear on my life, Six." The smile is back in his voice. "After the initial 'you guys are _dating?!_ ' reactions died down, I told Uno _everything_. He had a good chuckle about your change in heart, too. Actually, we ended up telling everyone that you said no out of panic. It's a cute story."

His heartbeat in his ears overpower Siete's rambling. He's never known Siete to be this open with his emotions or to grieve where the Eternals can see. Six hadn't realized that Siete being _transparent_ solved most of the problems he had with him.

Just like the Siete he's used to, the Siete across from him, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor, never stops trying. He describes the garden they walked through, the food they ate, the cold sting of the midwinter as they wandered around town. Six lets his fairytale wash over him as his lullaby, hoping that when he next wakes, life will be kinder to him.

He doesn't want to commit to this dream for fear of waking up again. Taking the same risk would only mean that it would crumble between their fingers with time.

Siete's story tapers off, trapping Six in the not-quite state of unconsciousness, when he hasn't fallen asleep yet but he's awake enough to know he's barely so. Only the sound of his steady breathing, off time from Siete's, fills the room.

Before he can drift off, Siete's chuckle reminds him that he's conscious. His head is too heavy to raise, but in the darkness, he hears Siete stand up and stretch, something in his body cracking. "You did always fall asleep to escape my stories," he mutters, but not low enough to mask the affection in it. "'Night, sleepyhead."

Siete walks over to him, hovering before leaning over to put one arm around his shoulder and another below his knees. In one smooth motion, Siete picks him up, shifting so he's secure. He's surrounded by warmth, and with his mind drifting off, the rest of him seeks it, curling against him. Instead of taking him to his bed mere steps away, Siete takes slow, careful steps out of his room, returning him to the empty room beside his to lay him on the bed and shift the covers around him.

The room doesn't go dark. Siete is still hovering in the doorway, and when he shifts, the hallway light slices through the darkness to burn against his eyelids. Six frowns, and with the chuckle he hears, he knows he's been found out.

"Awake all this time? Sneaky."

"One question."

Siete is silent for too long, and he considers falling asleep instead of waiting for him to answer—but a part of him has always waited for Siete to retaliate. "Shoot," he breathes out.

"Your story about our first date. Are you serious?"

"Of course." Siete responds before he can finish his question. Six hears a smile in his voice, one that he doesn't want to confirm by opening his eyes. "I wouldn't joke about that. Lying to you is how I got in trouble with you the first time we started dating."

Six should turn over and sleep. He can't invite this any longer, and yet—"What?"

Siete sighs. "I spent so long, you know… hiding everything behind shitty jokes that to suddenly expose myself to someone as much as I did to you was horrifying." He says it with more candour than Six would expect, given the admission of his worst habit. "But for you, I'd do it all again."

"You are now," he chokes out, dripping with contempt and curling into the sheets. Acid rises up his throat, forcing the panic down into his chest. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't care, that it's for the best that Siete doesn't get attached again when they're about to go on the next leg of this mission. But loving Siete runs through his veins and is etched in the grooves of his fingerprints, like it was this body's habit to reach out and touch.

The door creaks and closes, leaving no light in the room. He knows the hope that Siete's left is one made in vain; he hears the floorboards creak under Siete's footsteps, stopping at the bed. The mattress dips under his weight, and Six rolls by a fraction toward him. "Don't feel bad." Siete sighs again. (Maybe it's an exhale, or maybe it's a laugh.) "Lucky for you, I've basically been in love with you since the moment we met. And besides, none of this is your fault. Thank you for caring about the Eternals enough to sacrifice yourself for us."

"I don't know if I do anymore," Six says. "I don't know if I'm that sort of man anymore."

"It's not 'anymore', Six. It's 'yet'."

Siete shifts closer, and he doesn't stop him. He doesn't stop Siete when he combs his fingers in Six's hair, and he doesn't stop Siete from humming a song under his breath as Six falls into a very different darkness, his heart beating in tandem with Siete's.

* * *

He wakes at sunrise in his own empty room, in his own empty bed. The morning rays drag across his body like long-forgotten fragments of warmth. He hears Funf again, and a burst of light blinds him between the curtains he never closed in full since the first dawn he saw her.

He was her first and only successful resurrection, different from her talent of preventing a permanent death with her torrential blessing. But she perseveres, and seeing her every morning makes him pick himself up from the depths of hell to face the Eternals.

More damning than seeking closure, they cursed him with seeking the path _forward_ , regardless of whether it brought him any closure.

He sits at the edge of his bed, holding his head in his hands as the nausea washes over him. He thinks of Siete last night, sharing unrealistic memories with endless understanding as Six drifted off to his voice. He made Siete weak for him and then attacked him where it would hurt the most by _forgetting_ him.

Happiness is always fleeting. How has he still not learnt this lesson? The frustration drives him to another early morning in the training room, building into an aggression so blinding that he doesn't hear his name being called until a bullet flies by his ears and straight into the head of the dummy he's fighting.

He turns around to an apologetic-looking Esser, gun still smoking as she secures it back in her holster. "Breakfast," she says, and her hesitation tells him it was prepared by Siete, as it tends to be _._

It isn't unnatural for two or three people to eat meals together whenever their schedules aligned, but the Eternals now make an active effort to eat together instead of only doing so when convenient. There are too many changes, and Six has never been good with changes. Clenching his fists, he says, "I'll take what I need."

Her ears straighten on the top of her head. He hasn't been attending meals, making his own or missing them altogether, but the night before left him susceptible to suggestions of who he once was. Unable to hide her hopeful smile, she leaves him to put his gloves back on and tidy the room—but not before he sees her eyes flicker down to his left hand, free of wrappings, knuckles red with the intensity of his destructive spar.

Above the open cuts, he is wearing the ring. If Siete noticed it last night, he brought no attention to it.

More than half of the Eternals are in the kitchen, eating and chatting. The noise dampens when he walks in and takes a plate, putting the bare minimum of necessary food on it before turning away.

He almost manages an escape before Siete greets him from in front of the stove. He beams with a smile that he can't quite contain; Six can't tell if it's worse that Siete fails in his attempt or that he would reserve a smile so radiant for him at all. "Wait, before you go, don't forget that the meeting's later today, before dinner."

"Great timing," Quatre says. "Right while everyone's starving."

He sticks his tongue out at Quatre. "If you're not ready, then just let us know, seriously."

"I'm fine," Six grits out, ears flattening against his head with the room's attention on him. He doesn't _think_ he's ever seen that grin on Siete's face before, so unabashed in his happiness, but—no, he's always looked at Six in the way Six wanted to confine to his dreams, where it was easier to ignore.

_Love,_ his mind sings in his own voice, in the sound of Siete's pen scratching against rough paper, putting care into each stroke so that his intent was clear before crossing it out.

( _The fuck is so hard about understanding that Siete loves you?_ )

Six escapes, carrying his plate of food to his room.

Breakfast, from an objective standpoint, is good. It's _amazing_. Siete has never failed to cook a delicious meal. But it's that quality that makes him sick, like he was never meant to ingest anything that good. He could only expel from his body. Be empty.

He spends the entire day in his room, lying on the floor and staring at the wall. If he covers his face with his mask, it's like he never left the hamlet, and he can pretend the Eternals' voices are the warnings of ghosts to torture him.

* * *

He dreams about dying.

Death is a constant theme among his unconscious thoughts, whether he's exacting it or receiving it. This afternoon, however, brings him not a death-laden dream, but a _memory_. He remembers little from his return days ago to now, living his life in a haze, but what visits him now is a torture devised by his mind alone, ensnaring him with the one thing he can and should remember in great detail.

In his unconscious state, the memory possesses his body to break him apart by the molecule. He knows which scars would open against his skin, through muscle and down to the bone, excruciating but not enough to end his life. The spears twist through his limbs, the gears of time crush his heart—but this memory doesn't move linearly. It rewinds through him, reliving his death for fate's own infinite amusement.

The words _Not yet_ echo again in the hollow parts of himself that he loses, now mocking instead of soothing. _You have done too much for me,_ the voice sings as the pain tears through his body once more. He opens his mouth, but he has no throat with which to scream. He watches the bone jut out from his chest, seven pillars rising to hail the sun's ascent.

When all that remains of him is laying in a pool of blood, he sits up to watch the forest drown in red. A cloak of white and a streak of blond stands untouched, and then Siete turns around to face him still lying on the ground, a corpse with enduring soul, rotting among life. The smile that blooms against Siete's lips is so compassionate that the red surrounding him flowers in kind, petals fluttering into the air to leave behind their original colours.

_Why do you want to live?_ Siete asks him, hidden beneath the flurry of petals, with more affection than when he'd first said those words to Six in the hamlet. The petals simmer down to reveal their edges, sharp as steel; small, bleeding cuts adorn Siete's skin, brush strokes of red against an immaculate canvas, and he collapses down onto one knee and says—

"Um, Six!"

Six restrains his scream when he wakes to the knocking on his door. If he fights through his heartbeat thundering in his ears, he can hear Funf's impatient fidgeting before she knocks again. "It's almost meeting time! And, um, we couldn't find you."

"I'm awake." He winces at how hoarse he sounds. "I just—I took a nap."

"Okay," she says. She fidgets some more. "Six, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

She makes a long noise of consideration before she blurts, "You were napping, but your door wasn't locked, so I peeked in. I wanted to make sure you were—" She takes a shaking breath, cutting herself off. "I keep—I keep messing up—"

"It's fine, Funf," he says, cutting her off. He's numb to the revelation that he left his door unlocked, allowing someone to watch him _writhe_ as he lived through his death again. "I'll take a shower before I join."

"Okay…" She sounds like she's about to cry again. "I'll leave you alone."

He waits until her footsteps fade away before he picks himself up off the bed, dragging his feet to the showers to rinse the sweat off his body from fitful sleep.

Hanan's voice haunts him during each step he takes, her words warning him of his hubris. The words of his revival are so consuming that he doesn't realize that he's allowed his body to take control; he's followed the mundane ritual of wearing his new uniform and walking down to where the others wait. He only becomes cognizant of it when he hovers in the doorway of the meeting room, where everyone's heads turn in his direction.

His breathing emerges ragged from beneath his mask. When he wakes from nightmares, he always forgets that those around him are alive.

"Are you okay?" Song asks. Her gaze, more than the rest, has always been too discerning, even when softened with understanding.

He feels like he's at their mercy, open and ready for judgement. Before he can choke out an answer, Nio speaks up. She looks at him not with concern like the others, but as if she were gaining more insight about the problem that's been plaguing her. After painful consideration, her expression twisting, she asks, "Did you dream, Six? Funf mentioned she found you sleeping."

"I… recalled," he says. "For the first time, my death in detail. Hanan speaking to me."

She deliberates before asking her next question, quieter than before. "May I play it?" His melody must be oppressive enough for her to ask, determined to release it from him.

His first thought is to reject her and walk out. He doesn't want to give away the last part of himself that he knows is _his_ , as much as it tortures him _._ But for the sake of the mission, for the sake of his _job_ , he will abandon it. Everything he's ever gained, he would soon lose with time. This is no different. "Do what you want."

"I don't want to hurt—"

"Nio," he snarls. "You've already asked it of me. I've agreed. Do it."

She steadies herself before backing up from her seat and taking her harp. The first notes she plucks have an immediate effect on the other four with her at that battle, Six included, and his nails dig into the grain of the wooden door frame.

_The sun rose and set over thousands of years. All the while, Hanan was the last of the cycle, the end bleeding out into light and over the blue skies. The one before her had been the night itself, but before they could meet her, Six met his death._

_The lyrics of his demise_ _, the others can now hear—the rumbling carriage on which he sat and faced his self, a reverse sunrise but not a sunset_ _. Funf's magic and Hanan's returned him not without loss, but not without gain; this time, when Six returns to the land of the living, he watches the sun reverse its sunrise, sinking in the west._

He hadn't realized that he'd stumbled forward onto the table for support until the screeching of his nails scratching into the wood grinds in his ears. He lifts his head to see Quatre, Funf, and Uno, pale-faced and grasping anything solid to stay afloat. Nio's shaking fingers lift from the strings, and while the rest of the Eternals would have seen little more than vague images, the emotions that the memories evoked are potent enough to shake them.

Uno takes a deep breath. When he looks around the room, he ends on Six—and for the first time since returning from the mission, his unyielding leadership overtakes the doubt and regret in his eyes. He speaks, breaking the silence. "What I heard, I cannot describe. But I and the other three will aid you, Six."

"No." Six balls his hands into fists. "I'll do it. This is my burden to bear, not—"

He looks to the others, and his voice fades. Their pain may not be a perfect reflection of his, but in the ripples of his fate, they experienced their own burdens: failure of duty, failure to protect someone they considered a friend. He wets his lips. "This is not a burden for you to willingly shoulder for my sake. Allow me, at the very least, to begin."

His movements are mechanical as he takes the empty seat next to Siete, too preoccupied to ruminate on how that seat is still his. He runs his hands through his hair. He pushes his ears against his head. He grips the hairs at the back of his neck. Sweat drips down his face underneath the mask.

They wait. He steadies his breathing. And he starts.

"Even if Funf's magic had been unsuccessful, I would have returned. That was what I sensed from the message she sent me."

"'She'? Hanan?" Quatre asks, his throat dry. Six sees, as he crosses his arms against his chest, the sunrise-coloured ring bleeding red on the chain against his heart.

Six breathes out until there's no more air in his lungs, and then he nods in agreement. His eyes dart around, unfocused. His thoughts are a jumbled mess, and he doesn't even know if he makes sense, if Hanan's words were his mind's fabrication or a memory. "She told me that I did too much. To save my breath. That memories were my life."

Understanding is just out of his grasp. The voice, like the moment they had learnt the primal beast's name, sounded older than time itself, and yet outside the stream of time, unaffected.

"I'm sorry for intruding," Nio murmurs, so low that Six almost misses it. "but you were—the melody you were carrying was so close to the surface—"

"Nio." He stops her before he can continue in a desperate attempt to hold on to the fading images.

The room goes silent. When he steadies himself, calming what imbalance within him that he can, he looks up to face the pronounced guilt in her eyes. His interruption was brash, too focused on not falling apart. She deserves better for her efforts; he deserves the derision. He tries again. "If we could gleam new information from it so we could sooner end this nightmare, then it helped."

He knows that this meeting is the Eternals' way of showing their confidence in taking him on this mission. He lacks that same confidence about his state of mind—even outside of a battle environment, he continues to succumb to the darkness, outbursts of emotions he can't control. But he also knows he has a duty that none else can bear. The meeting has yet to start, and he's already given them new knowledge, carried from his death to now.

Knowledge was imparted unto the five of them, but Six alone must suffer the most. However far this mission takes him, it cannot be with the other nine Eternals.

"I was not meant to die." Now that Nio's song brings to light the horror he experienced, he can do nothing but speak of it. "That was never the intention, despite how aggressive the beast—Hanan seemed."

When Six's eyes dart around, seeking order in the chaos of his mind, Uno picks up where he left off. "Before Hanan's disappearance, she gave us a message about mortality." He gives the word _mortality_ the same weight that Hanan had in their minds.

Quatre continues. "'It is the prerogative of mortal life and flesh to liberate me and my sisters'."

Funf finishes for him, a symphony of words with meanings known only to them. "'Immortals cannot grasp the freedom within limitation'."

Their words echo against each Eternal in the room, leaving a hollow silence in their wake. The first person to react, like the spring warmth creeping into a frozen creek, is Sarasa, who scratches her head, brows furrowed as if she were debating over what to say.

She carries more tact than before—and yet, her words are just as subtle as a boulder crashing through their walls, shattering the silence that fell over the Eternals. "So, what the hell does it mean?"

Siete speaks for the first time that night. He tries to stay optimistic, but between Nio's song and the despair that dawns on them, his bright voice falls flat. "That's what we're here to find out." He tilts his head up, eyes focusing on some point high in the ceiling. "Was there anything else?"

Nio puts her still-shaking hands on the table to steady them, and she frowns trying to recall the battle. "Her images. One was pure darkness, but the other was a mountain in the fog."

Her voice grows louder each time she speaks in this meeting. She must not realize it. Six wonders what the cacophony of his melody sounds like against the other eight, how she could bear the song that Arawo sang.

"That's a start," Siete says, and then he leans behind his chair to grab a large scroll. He unfurls it to reveal a map, and then he pins it across their blackboard. "Gran sent me a map of Arawo a few days ago." He points at the capital, resting on the eastern edge on the largest island of the archipelago nation. "Real funny joke Hanan made with that mountain thing, there's mountains everywhere here."

Quatre moves to stand behind Uno, marking a location with him. "Well, that's where we were, give or take a few hundred metres."

From the length of the road, the shape, and the surrounding area, Six guesses it to be the forest where they fought Hanan. He remembers little of his revival and subsequent return, and the map offers no help.

Esser hums. "Mountains may be everywhere, but the greatest mountain range lies just west of the capital," she says, pointing down the middle of the island. One that large is rare in the part of the skydom that Arawo is in.

"Is it time for a trek to the mountains?" Siete asks in jest.

From where he's still standing, eyes scanning the map, Quatre says, "Might just be easier to ask Aquino."

"Yeah, good point. But to recap—mountains and at least two more primal beasts are related to this whole fiasco?"

"That seems to be the foundation of how to move forward, yes," Uno says, stroking his mustache. His eyes are steady on the map, scanning it as if more information would reveal itself under his scrutiny. "Hardly more information than last time, but enough to begin a search for the next location. That should be all."

Six stares at the map until his eyes blur with the effort of keeping them open without blinking. Focusing on Quatre's mark of where their battle took place, he digs through his faded memories to remember anything else of importance.

Then, he pauses, struck with how obvious it is. "Memories." He looks to everyone before stopping at Siete. He's a natural endpoint, a perfect anchor. "A mountaintop, two other primal beasts—and whatever curse fell upon me to make further engagement difficult."

It's an observation that should be unspoken; the Eternals witnessed this memory loss firsthand, and Nio's song belaboured that point. But something still nags at him, something that only grows when Esser nods with confirmation.

She sounds like she doesn't want to continue her train of thought, her words stilted. "We might consider the memory loss as a constant, but that doesn't mean we can put it aside. Six, you were there when we visited Pauai with Gran and Lyria before joining our mission. The soldiers we found then only lost a few years…" She trails off, averting everyone's gaze. "Any number of years is still many, but compared to the decades that the ones before had previously lost, it was an improvement."

"Don't say what you're thinking." Quatre frowns, but not at her. He frowns at the wall, face filling with dread as he can't escape her suggestion. "Hanan was so weak after Six died," he mutters. "That was the only reason we could leave a mark on her. We didn't change any of our attacks."

Esser looks up at Six in apology before turning her head down. "We must be prepared for the possibility of a link between your sacrifice and the other beasts' eventual defeat."

Beside him, Siete breathes in. With every second that passes as he exhales, he sounds like he loses more of his ability to control himself. He doesn't hide how he looks at Six, filled with concern and a love that he can't restrain any longer.

Quatre's voice is low and disbelieving, cutting through the silence. "But if all the other soldiers' sacrifices weakened Hanan, who's to say that the next primal beast won't need more? Or that the final one won't need the entire island? The skydom?"

"We'll figure it out when we get there," Siete says, but the tone of his voice reveals that he's been thinking the same thing. It reveals the same, fading optimism as Esser's suggestion, Quatre's disbelief. "For now, let's find where the next one is, and we won't engage when we see it. Do we have a name?"

"No," Six says, but he doesn't worry himself with it. When Hanan gave them her name, she planted it so far back in their consciousness that it felt like they were born with the knowledge. "Whenever she wants it to happen, she will let us know."

* * *

Nio accompanies the original investigation group of Siete, Esser, and Six, leaving Uno and Quatre to update Gran and protect Lyria from experiencing further pain. They plan to arrive at Arawo in a few days before sunrise; until then, Six avoids falling prey to his weakness, staring instead at the shared wall between his and Siete's room at night before drifting into a light slumber.

On the morning of the investigation, he arrives to the common room before the rest, staving away the darkness while wishing he was enough of a coward to hide in it. Siete is the first to meet him, waving at him as he walks downstairs and offering a smile before going into the kitchen.

Attaching no emotion to it, Siete says, "You didn't eat, did you?"

Six shakes his head. Siete shouldn't be able to see the action, but he must be obvious enough, because Siete sighs.

"Or sleep?"

"I was unconscious for some time," Six says.

Siete says nothing else.

The silence that falls between them is as fragile as glass, and as of late, Six cannot be trusted to hold delicate moments in his hands. Instead, he watches Siete in the kitchen, preparing snacks for their mission with his back facing Six. He thinks of all the things he could say to reassure Siete that he doesn't need to worry—but Six has never been good at lying.

Esser and Nio come down at the same time, and when Siete turns to greet them, his smile is the same, easy one he's known for years. Unlike Six, Siete's always been too good at lying.

* * *

Their greatest anchor point becomes Nio, and although she's worn a permanent frown since the day Six returned to them in parts, she sharpens with concentration when they step onto the island.

On the surface, everything looks the same; ease settles atop Six's skin, feeling stability without understanding why. Business here has slowed down now that rumours are spreading about the mysterious magic afflicting its inhabitants with great loss. Under hushed whispers, the skydom knows that the Eternals are here, that they keep coming back.

Nio grits her teeth, looking straight ahead to filter out the concerns of both the townspeople and its visitors. She tells them that she seeks the melody further underground, the one that ties the citizens and tangles them together until they're lost among each other. She becomes their barometer for the stability of the island, fingers twitching to pluck at strings even without harp in hand.

Esser has always been perceptive in silence; while they watch the island, she watches the three of them, putting a hand on Nio's shoulder when her nails dig into her palm with how hard she's clenching them, tugging on Siete's arm when he stops for too long to stare at Six while monitoring on Six herself.

Siete keeps his back straight and head high, talking to who he can and fielding questions from curious people about whether they could fix the island, whether there will be any more losses. The Eternals' uniform brings neither blessings nor curses nor certain outcomes. It only brings a warning of the aftermath of danger.

For Six, this investigation is mere duty. He exists as a reminder of the things lost, his power useless for the unpreventable misfortune dealt against the Eternals.

When they reach the border of Pauai once again, Siete finds the general from before. As they speak together, Esser hovers between Nio and Six, but she follows Siete in the end. Nio focuses through the turbulent emotions, and Six remains by her side as she hums under her breath. She's quiet enough that the others can't hear the melody that has righted itself and the dissonance she recreates with her voice alone.

The more he listens to her sing, the more he sees the cacophony among the soldiers positioned here. Everyone seems off-balance, strained looks on their faces as they struggle to hold on to what few memories they can't risk losing.

Esser and Siete return with frowns that match the uncanny dissonance among everyone they've seen since arriving. Nio stops humming to listen to what they have to say, her fingers still tapping a rhythm against her leg.

West of the mountain range that splits the archipelago, at its base, lies Arawo's old capital. Mayi is alive and well. Before their battle from a week ago, most of the reports of memory loss came from the current capital; with those dwindling, most were now coming from Mayi.

"Turns out it was always like that, that Mayi had the most incidents past the capital. 'Slipped my mind', he said." Siete relays his words with equal part exasperation and awareness of the situation. "Slipped his mind, or it might have come back after Hanan."

No one expresses their doubt about that speculation. Six has still regained nothing but for the vague image in his heart of a dark room, Siete's hand in his.

They board the next train out of Pauai, and exiting the borders unfolds the vast swath of jungle behind the windows, lakes of glittering blue and small villages untouched but for a few connecting roads. The other three follow the sun in the sky, but every time Six looks for himself, it hasn't moved, even though they've been travelling for a while.

Then again, Six might be misinterpreting the sun's position. The train's wheels over the tracks rumble like an old carriage's wheels over dirt roads, rattling his skull with the reminder of death and distracting him.

Darkness swallows them when they pass through the mountains, and then the train slows at its platform. When they disembark, the sun is suspended in the same place. It must have been at least an hour to travel, and nothing has changed.

Stepping foot onto Mayi's soil from the man-made platforms sends a shock through them, most of all Nio—a premonition of something to come, a reminder that they're close.

"That's it," Nio says once she can stand on her own two feet once more. "Six is still dissonant, but in the same way as the island. The countermelody grows ever stronger. In fact…" she takes a deep breath. "His cacophony finds form as the island does, singing in synchronized chaos."

Mayi is larger than the villages they passed on the way here, but smaller than the capital. The largest mountain of the range casts no shadow; the sun is at its zenith, an eternal noon for the island.

There is a shrine on the other side of the city, but at the peak of the largest mountain, farther from the capital but still visible, lies a temple with winding steps, disappearing among the overgrowth. In their attempts to describe it, they find that their observations differ from each other, giving the same pyramidal structure but reporting different states of disrepair.

Six says little past his original observation. The temple remains the same to him even as fog obscures and reveals it; he knows he is consistent within himself where the others cannot be. The tears in time grow insistent. More than affecting himself, it affects those around him that he can see now that he doesn't ignore their company for their duty.

They travel to Mayi's border; like Pauai, civilization dissolves at the edge for nature to reclaim, and it gives Nio an opportunity to take out her harp without interruption. They listen to her play the song she's been humming all day, and while the melody stands strong, everything meant to support it falls apart. She plays not with enthusiasm, but with the effort of committing every part of the experience to memory. Through images that none of them could ever bring to words, she recounts the tale of the old capital in amputated countermelodies and deteriorated harmonies. Listening to her narrative of song causes them as much pain as it clarifies the disturbance within them and the entire island of Arawo.

When she lowers her harp, they lift their heads to the sky. The sun hasn't moved.

"That temple," Siete says. No one knows what else to say, their eyes turning toward it, hidden once again behind the fog. "We need to go back and regroup. Although I don't know what we'll say to the rest."

"I…" Nio nods. "I'll play what I can. This piece was ensnared within Six since the moment he fell to Hanan. Playing it now only made me more sure of it." Nio sits, and Esser holds her harp for her, freeing her hands. Nio tangles her fingers together and squeezes until her knuckles turn white.

"Don't push yourself," Siete says, but the way he says it carries knowledge that they all hold—if an Eternal can do something, they _will_. "For the time being, let's head back. I think we've gotten everything we can here. Climbing up to the temple itself poses its own risks if we're unprepared and the next primal beast is already waiting." _Unprepared like we were_ _before_ _,_ he doesn't say, but Six knows from where his caution stems. All of them do.

"Do you really think we can prepare?" Six speaks for the first time since they left Pauai. He continues searching the mountain's peak, but he can sense their curious stares on him.

Siete sits on his words before he says, "If we're given the opportunity to prepare, then we might as well. Regardless of how useless it might seem, there'll always be something to rebuild from."

Six turns his eyes from the mountain to look at the leader of the Eternals. Whether this is idealism or a desperate optimism, Six cannot tell. But he knows that those words were, down to the very core, _Siete._

Whatever it was that Siete was made of—optimism, bravery, every molecule of stardust he could hold—Six could never resist. "Then let's return," he agrees, aligning himself with Siete for the first time since returning, meeting his gaze with a steady resolve. "There is nothing more for us here."


	5. days

The confirmation that time is tearing itself apart at the seams gives Six no peace. The train back to the capital feels half as long as the ride there, and still, the sun hasn't moved from its position in the sky when they return to the docks.

Time crumbles at the heart of this island and threatens to spread outwards until the only empty shells, devoid of past, present, and future, inhabit the skydom. This should give no one peace—but a location and the potential answer stills something within him.

Their next meeting is uneventful, and more and more Six questions when it was that they started coming, so readily, to each other's calls. Siete herds them together when he sees that most of the Eternals are still at the base, just as surprised as they are when they've returned in less than a day when it takes that long alone to travel to Arawo. The longer the ten of them carry the burden of these primal beasts, the less pretense Siete carries of lightening the mood, recounting their investigation the moment that everyone is in the room with determination.

They have little to no more information about how to fight the next beast if she is similar to Hanan, but this time, none of them refrain from mentioning Six's sacrifice. "There will be no further deaths," Siete emphasizes, something fierce in his eyes. For the first time since Six has known him, he witnesses Siete's guilt, contorting the words in his chest until he has to strangle them out. "I cannot allow this."

"Then allow me once more," Uno says, denying Siete from volunteering. "I have provided my protection already. I will do so again." _I will not fail_ , his eyes say.

Siete doesn't protest this time, nodding, and Six can't fault Uno's determination to prove himself able of protecting him a second time.

Nio and Funf volunteer next. Nio wears her guilt easier than Siete does, but she reiterates her ability to witness and relay the states of the primal beast ahead of them. She's offered indispensable information with her songs, and her drive to return to Six what she had taken from him pushes her to see this mission to its end. Still wanting to avoid combat but no longer averse to it, Nio has developed a dexterity within her silences and her music. Six has seen her necessary aggression in battle, and by the lack of protest, so has everyone else.

Six doesn't blame her, as much as he doesn't blame Uno. Six has never blamed her for what his lost self chose to do.

Funf, too, is an obvious choice. Without fail, he sees her every morning at sunrise, watching both countless failures and marginal successes of her revival magic. Despite her inconsistency, Six realizes while watching her vigour that he would trust no other mage in the skies else to bring him from the brink of death once again.

She's eager to recount her sunrise practices, how she can extend her revival and second wind for everyone around her instead of a certain few. "But I just did it this morning, and I think—no, I _know_ I need three days to regenerate the magic," she says, words rushing out. No one denies her the chance to speak, but her words tumble out like she's racing against time for the others to consider her a candidate.

Siete looks to everyone before allowing her to go on the mission. His fists clench as the Eternals prevent him from being by Six's side. For what reason, Six can't tell, but this must have been a conversation they've had before; Siete doesn't question it, and no one voices the exact reason for stopping him.

Okto volunteers himself in place of Quatre. Funf sees his concern, and her jaw sets not with childish stubbornness, but with acceptance that there will always be a world beyond her breadth of power. "Zeal must come with balance. You do not have to carry life and death within you alone."

All eyes fall upon Six, and he scoffs. "As if there were any other choice," he confirms. Even here, far away from Arawo, he feels the song Nio played at Mayi weave through his thoughts. Hanan's magic tore him apart and stitched him back together after taking something for itself, and it stands that he should be the one to behold that same magic once more at the top of the world before plummeting to its core.

Six prepares with the others. They tell him that they do so now in the same way they did for Hanan—with no information on how to protect themselves or land successful attacks. They sharpen their weapons, hone their powers for protection and healing, but mental preparations elude them still.

They wait for Funf to confirm that she has restored her magic torrent, the charity of her spells stored and ready for the battle. On that third day, with nothing but prayers and blind preparation, the five of them face what remains.

* * *

They arrive early in the morning, but the sun at Mayi is in perpetual noon. It remains the same when their train arrives into the old capital. Okto, Funf, and Uno react with the same jolt of realization when they step onto Mayi's soil.

Access to the temple is restricted, but the general waits at the entrance to let them pass. There are one thousand steps to the mountain's peak, and each footfall sends them into a world different from the only one they've known. Many ships fly higher than this mountain's summit where the air is thinner, but magic chokes their airways, old with death and new with rebirth.

Somewhere between seconds and hours pass when they arrive at the temple, standing on the mountain's peak. Below them, the maze they traversed through to reach Mayi's borders is unrecognizable. Six can't tell if it's an illusion or a function of time's deterioration, but the city is in ruins before fog obscures their vision, reappearing as new.

Toward the east, Six can see the expanse of the Arawo archipelago's largest island, the railroad fading into the horizon.

"This imbalance is too great to ignore," Uno says, floating from his vantage point so his feet can find solid ground. He stumbles. Six catches him.

Even Okto's stalwart presence seems to distort with time around them devolving into chaos. Six thinks with finality that he has nothing left to lose; he is only himself during a fight, and he still cannot reconcile with the fact that he has to succumb to unknown power to return to the self that he's lost. Yet, if those around him require his own destruction to save the skies, then he would gladly reduce himself to ash.

There is nothing that remains of him. The others have taken from him what they need, and it is their fault that they have created someone they would miss.

( _Siete, in the dark, kissing his temple, reassuring him—_ )

Nio's hands shake as she reaches for her harp. "The primal beast is underground," she says, eyebrows furrowing. She plays nothing. "Connected to this temple, but beneath this soil."

Six asks what doesn't need to be asked. "Does she lay in wait?"

The look she gives him is answer enough.

The others search, maintaining reverence for the ancient grounds and keeping a wide berth around the stone railings of the imposing temple itself. An invisible force constricts Six's chest and prevents him from following them past the first gate. He faces the temple, everyone's footsteps beating in time with his uncertain heart.

Karm fell this silent after the massacre, with only ghosts wandering between the trees. He feels at home in the graveyard of the spirits. His definition of _home_ has always been skewed.

At the top of the mountain, this temple feels taller than any structure in the skydom, carvings made in stone and brick winding from its base to the stupa at its peak. It leaves no shadow with the sun overhead, but the darkness it would cast with the sun near the horizon would swallow them whole.

The Eternals' footsteps don't echo against the temple's surface when they explore the gardens. It absorbs the noise for itself, creating a void atop the centre of the skies. The sanctity of this place has found a home in his life before; both gods and devils take the name _supernatural._ Both have treated him the same in the past _._ This temple is thick with a reverence for the heavens above and the hells below that arrested Six all his life.

The divine retribution he waited years for traps him in a shell of himself; brought back to life to continue his torture, the Eternals wouldn't let him die. The Eternals' spirit is theirs and theirs alone, more insidious than the exact torture with which immortals regale upon him.

The place at which Six would arrive after his true death hasn't changed from the moment he was born. But now, he abandons his last chance for enlightenment for the sake of those around him.

In these grounds between the skies and the Crimson Horizon, only mortals step foot on this soil and plant themselves here. There is no greater resting place for one strung along by mercy's cruel whims.

This temple has not been well kept. Weather has chipped away scenes from carved panels, telling incomplete stories of the sisters of time; there are no monks to maintain this defunct structure, nor to complete the tales lost to the elements. With rising resolve to see his own thread to completion, he strikes a path straight through the stone rails and to the temple's entrance, sensing the other four's eyes on him as he pushes the heavy door aside.

This section of the hall is reserved for worshippers, and the entrance leading from outside is narrow enough to suffocate him. It opens into a chamber covered in a thick layer of dust, seeping through the cracks of his mask and choking him. He refuses to cough. Light streaks through the dirt-covered windows as the door slams shut behind him. The others don't follow, reduced to silhouettes of shadowed ghosts marring the sunlight.

For a moment, he is a child in the Karm hamlet once more.

He leaves footprints in the dust but touches nothing, slipping through cracks and wandering through hallways, brushing aside the protection wards that have never once granted shelter to him. The entrance to sanctuary reserved for the gods is ajar, hidden behind three statues meant for followers to leave offerings; even from where he stands, Six can tell that the sanctuary is free of dust, somehow maintained despite the disrepair of the surrounding hall.

The statues' eyes seem to follow him as he snakes between them to open the entrance and stand among the space reserved for forgotten primal beasts.

He casts a shadow upon the room as he steps inside. There are no other statues, nor offerings or dressings of worship. The room is bare, and against the back wall is a stone door incongruent with the temple's layout.

The sound of short footsteps behind the statues followed by lumbering ones interrupts his further investigation, eclipsing his already restricted vision. "Six?" Funf's voice pierces through his thoughts. "Is that you?"

"I found something." Eyes watching the mysterious entrance, he doesn't turn to look at them until the silence stretches on for too long without a response.

Already, the other four are waiting, apprehensive but trusting. Two of the statues' stone-carved despair becomes prominent beside the Eternals', hollow eyes gouged out by the dusk's return.

The final statue watches over him in her tranquil generosity, arms raised in acceptance with her crown of sun's rays whole once more.

He steps further into the forgotten room, and they follow, leaving the statues in place. This stone entrance is carved impossibly into the mountain's core; whispers emerge from its opening, the ancient tongue of the primal beast slithering out of the darkness to ensnare his heart in his chest.

"This is it," Nio says, her fingers tapping against her legs to preserve the rhythm.

The call is stronger than his caution, and Six pushes the heavy entrance aside. He steps in without waiting for the others, expecting them to protest, but they follow him in silence. Funf runs beside him to reach for his hand, and he's distracted enough to allow her to hold it.

The first step of the staircase begins where the light behind the statues ends, cut into the stone against the sun's descent. The darkness is almost impenetrable, and while there are lamps planted against the walls, neither fire nor magic can ignite them. Funf summons small orbs of light to keep them from stumbling over their steps, but when Okto suggests she reserve her mana for a battle, Six notices a light source, dim like the moon behind clouds but bright enough to guide them.

They descend in silence, their grasp on the time that's passed tenuous. The path at the bottom of the stone steps opens into a circular room, holding only an altar in its heart and offerings untouched by man or immortal. On the altar lays another primal beast, and this knowledge they gain in much the same way Hanan planted her name in their consciousness. She looks like Hanan did, every inch of her body tangled in her black hair but for her eyes—one wide open and the other scarred over.

She stares at the ceiling of her chamber, unblinking. Without turning her head, her eye lowers to the entrance where they stand, like a full moon sinking beneath the horizon but not disappearing. Around Six, the others tense for a fight, taking up arms. A spear's point whips through the air; perfected blades glide against their sheathes; a stray note vibrates under shaking fingers; their leading light blinks before twinkling with apprehension. She doesn't react.

Six stills. He keeps her gaze, waiting.

 _You are almost complete,_ she says in a voice that reverberates no air in the chamber. _You were excessive._ _It gave you_ _all_ _time to prepare before this darkness_ _consumes_ _me_ _in a restless sleep_ _once_ _more_ _._ _You_ _cannot allow_ _me_ _to_ _crumble_ _in this state._

Her voice is the same weather-worn rasp as Hanan's with more lucidity. Nio offers, "I have a song—"

 _I know you, my child. Your song cannot lull me to sleep_ _as it can mortals_ _._ _None can delay m_ _y demise._

"Then what do you want us to do?" Uno's voice lacks skepticism in the face of a power older than any of them could fathom, but his spear's point stays trained on her.

 _Come back under the light of the stars._ _Return at night, and I will guide you_ _to_ _my_ _free_ _dom_ _._ _I am_ _weakened_ _,_ _b_ _ut do not_ _hesitate_ _. Even now, time moves_ _slower_ _than it should._

"Are you the last one?"

Six does not know whose voice speaks those words. The sacrificial chamber takes what it can from their spirits to give the beast the platform to speak.

 _Our oldest sister grows ever discordant underneath_ _me_ _. Free me, and_ _I will illuminate_ _the path. Free me. Free me._

* * *

When they emerge from the temple, the sun hangs at the almost same angle as when they first arrived, teasing the horizon but never getting closer. They could return to the base, but each of them know that the primal beast upon the altar spoke a sober truth. There will be no time to leave Arawo for a night's return, regardless of time's altered passing.

The wait in Mayi is excruciating. They rest among the temple grounds, making offerings where they can and tidying up the gardens. The largest tree is wild and unkempt, branches twisting and tangling; Okto leads Funf through the gate and teaches her to meditate beneath chaotic, dappled shade before using his blades to clean the errant growths. Uno and Nio piece together what they can of the story that the carvings tell, the sisters guarding millennia of existence and falling through cycles of decay.

Six wanders beneath each gate, crossing each long bridge, and his eyes never leave the old capital at the base of the mountain.

Only when the stars have littered the sky and the moon has risen to take the sun's place do they begin their descent again. They take care not to disturb the statues, but Six notices that they've moved; under the moonlight, one of them has her chin raised, her fists clenched with determination.

Their bones ache as their journey progresses, and this route is no less intimidating than before. The torches on the wall now burn with the full moon overhead, and still, the primal beast lays unmoving on the sacrificial altar.

Her unscarred eye is no longer wide with clarity, but half-closed and staring at the ceiling. _Light the candles,_ she instructs, _each of the eight that line this space and the two by my feet and crown_ _. Make your offerings_ _before they take_ _it_ _from you themselves._

Funf lights the first with her magic, and each of them take another to hold the wick against hers. They each carry their candle to another until all ten are burning with varying brightnesses, flickering like phases of the moon as they are set back to their places.

_It is time._

She gives no further instructions, and her presence fades from their minds for the candles to take her remaining flame. Six's eyes flutter closed, heavy with acute exhaustion; the candlelight flickers out of his vision, but in the stark blackness, the primal beast calls to him, a shimmering moon over a still brook.

He hears the voices of the four, one of them grabbing at his arm, but the grip seems to glide off him as he walks forward. Under the moonlight— _the gauntlet shining ancient gold on his hand, his feet among the ruins as Siete knelt_ _for him_ —the primal beast guides him to the sacrificial blade forming in the candles' rays refracting. Against his closed eyelids, he sees her in front of him. The threads of time tangle below, where one sister lays in wait; they are immaculate above, where the other has returned to peaceful guidance in sunlight.

"Why me?" he murmurs, his voice not his own.

 _You have sacrificed enough_ _._ Her voice resonates through his body, one reborn from the same material of the universe's beginnings. _My sister beneath_ _holds what is missing from_ _the people of these skies_ _, including you_ _. I cannot do any more except free_ _that which resides_ _in_ _your heart._ _No longer will you not feel lost, but you will still not know._

"One sacrifice for another."

 _Yourself_ _for me and my sisters, an unequal exchange for the skies' maintenance._ _Hanan did not need_ _your entire life_ _._ _Bound to me as she is, enough of_ _your eternal spirit_ _suspended my_ _further decay_ _. Tala will need scores more_ _, but with two of us restored,_ _she_ _will not_ _r_ _e_ _quire_ _widespread tragedy_ _._ _Y_ _our untimely death_ _has saved you_ _. Free me._

The sacrificial blade forms in his hand, spun of silver moonlight and given the name _Mayari_.

He lowers the blade onto her bonds. With both hands on the hilt, the wedding ring burns into the skin of his left ring finger.

Unlike Hanan, whose bonds sliced into their flesh to draw blood, Mayari's bonds ignite his nerves with sparks of lightning. He cries out in pain and collapses, remaining upright only by resting his weight on the dagger.

Through each layer of her confinements that he destroys, warmth trickles out to lap at his hands until he reaches her heart. The dam breaks, relief drowning his conscious mind and flowing out into the room until it extinguishes the candles and leaves them in darkness.

* * *

The dagger clatters onto the empty altar, and Six cries out.

His mind is in pieces, shattered but nothing missing, only scrambled. When he turns around, he sees the fading glow of Uno's shield, revealing shallow cuts and bruises; in their silence, he can guess that their toll was as psychological as his.

Without the candles, no light remains. They lose their sense of space and time to this void, finding each other through their voices, their breathing, their reminders that they are still alive. Nio holds Six's hand. Uno helps Funf into Okto's arms.

No sooner do they regroup does Mayari speak to them from the impenetrable darkness of the sacrificial chamber. Her eye opens to shine with moonlight once more, her gaze glimmers as she passes each one of them. _Our_ _sister lays beneath the earth, and she suffers. Prepare._ She looks at Six for longer than the rest, but says nothing more.

She disappears into nightsmoke, and it filters into his lungs like stardust to remind him to breathe. It forces him to cough; he collapses onto his knees, expelling the itch from his chest, and the other Eternals help him to his feet, dragging him upwards from the pull of the final sister beneath the earth.

* * *

That night, he dreams of Siete on one knee in the ruins of a town he knows well as a sanctuary, kissing his hand with an uncertainty that befits him, despite Six never having seen it on him before. He watches as Siete's eyebrows furrow with hesitation, looking up at Six from underneath long eyelashes, before smiling and apologizing for the dramatics. Here, on one knee, Siete looks smaller than he has ever known him to be.

He stands to return Six's mask, but in this dream (because for his sanity, this must be a dream), he pushes it away. Its obsidian catches the moonlight.

This is where the dream ends. This is where the memory of waking life that he can no longer deny begins.

 _He doesn't_ _recoil_ _when Siete holds his hand; among the_ _derelict_ _ruins, he allows himself to smile_ _at Siete's antics_ _for a single moment_ _. Six hates the attention_ _Siete tries to offer him_ _,_ _but_ _he can_ _no_ _t look away_ _when_ _Siete gets down on one knee and says an oath from_ _a_ _kingdom in a state of ruin as the terrain upon which they stand now—a place_ _Six has never_ _seen_ _,_ _but a_ place _that_ _he knows too well_ _._ _Siete's_ _heart bleeds onto the soil as he makes his promise, in jest or_ _in vulnerability_ _, and Six welcomes it._

 _Mayari_ _,_ _of the moonlight_ _,_ _shines upon them_ _._ _Six's heart beats_ _in his chest._ _Siete kisses his knuckles. It's a ridiculous display, and he would think Siete insincere if not for the slight_ _tremble_ _of_ _his hands that gloves cannot_ _conceal_ _._

 _It might have been a mistake to_ _let_ _this continue, but Siete_ _shatters_ _his defenses_ _to pieces_ _. He allows_ _his_ _own_ _descent_ _, these little pockets of love, because Siete doesn't tell him things will be okay. He_ shows _him_ _with so much conviction from_ _his_ _entire_ _heart that Six listens, that Six_ believes.

* * *

Six stares at the clouds passing under their airship as Uno steers them back to base, reflecting the moon now that she has returned home. Okto stands beside him, opting out of discussion, but his presence alone is enough to stir Six's reflection.

Mayari has freed his heart to return to the one that possessed this body, but like her sister, her bonds slicing through his mind left him with less of his already threadbare self. With each leg of this mission, he falls farther from a whole that he can understand.

This heart wants to be by Siete's side, more than Six has ever yearned to be—but this heart also leads him to where Funf needs help with divination in the kitchen, where she tells him to sit down and wait for her to tell him what Siete's making for breakfast the next day. His confusion carries him to meditate with Okto in the mornings after watering the flowers with Esser, rote actions for his body to find routine, for his pulse to calm down. His heart meanders into Siete's room to take his guitar and pluck at the strings with clumsy fingers, sitting in the base's greenhouse with Nio's guiding words, singing a song from the soul but not of it. His heart now knows to refill the bird feeders with Uno, how long to steep the tea that Song brings back as souvenirs from the corners of the skydom, the taste of the meals he and Quatre prepare for Stardust Town, the blood it pumps during his hunts with Sarasa.

The Eternals were never trying to hone him into a weapon for their own use on this mission. Instead of forcing him to regain what he lost, they exist by his side just the way he is, caught as an illegitimate product of time, moving ever forward without leaving him behind.

In both the waking world and his dreams, his heart leads him on a path he cannot see. He wanders blind, and yet his advance is steadfast. The right thing to do would be to fade away before disappointing anyone further, but this heart in the chest of the man they lost compels him to stay alive. Keep moving. See Siete's radiant smiles again, free of apprehension.

His heart wants to return home and force this broken version of him to witness Siete through the lens of love.

This time, when they arrive at the base, only half a day has passed since they embarked. Those still there are unprepared to see them, and as a commotion stirs, Siete trips over himself in hurrying to the entrance. "Did something go wrong? It took you almost a week to come back from Hanan." His words tumble out between his lips, close to stuttering as he inspects everyone's torn uniforms.

Because of his proximity to the act, Six is the only one of them with scrapes deep enough to bleed, but these will leave no scars. "The second beast has been put to rest," he says, before frowning.

Uno takes a long time to continue in the face of Siete's silence. "We should gather. We have much to discuss."

Six follows the group through their winding halls to the meeting room, watching their lives unfold in the picture frames without averting his gaze. Mayari has returned none of his lost memories, only a greater peace of mind with his loss.

He doesn't know how he went from the front door to his regular seat in the meeting room, but he finds himself there with the Eternals, their faces twisted with reflection on the lack of battle—except for one.

From across the table, Nio makes eye contact with him. "You seem more like yourself, if you don't mind me saying." She looks away before smiling, unsure. He doesn't know what _more like yourself_ means, but he agrees; something he didn't realize was unbalanced within him is righted once more. "Should we postpone the meeting for you to process what happened?"

Six shakes his head. "This is important." He feels even farther from this present, but still, the ground is steady beneath his feet, and fresh air fills his lungs. The Eternals have always been heavenbound, and with his mind lost among the stars, he might be closer to them now than ever.

Her eyes light up. "It's nice to hear you so stubborn again."

Siete is the last to arrive, more composed than when their group first arrived. "Spare no details," he says, out of breath and dropping into the seat next to Six. "Let's go."

Uno recounts the unkempt temple, the perilous steps to the mountain's peak, how it saw more activity for people that cared more for abandoned places than the spirits lying within them. Okto describes Mayi, flickering between life, destruction, and rebirth. Funf speaks of the magic, so deep to the earth that if she were younger, she would have drowned from its sheer power by proximity.

Nio sings the chords that struck against her strings with each step of their descent toward the primal beast, laying on the sacrificial altar in wait. She sings a song like Hanan's, but less discordant.

Funf describes the chamber and lighting the candles before turning to Six. "He was _possessed_ ," she whispers, "and he'd say things out loud, but the primal beast would only respond to _him_. Six, what did she even tell you?"

If only he could hear those words, then it remains his duty to relay them. "She told me that my life, flesh and spirit, was too much for her sister to bear. It resonated through Hanan's ties and left Mayari weak enough to wait for us instead of attack."

Okto hums, drawing everyone's attention. "Each one requires a sacrifice to forge the weapon by which we must destroy their cage. Thus far, it has been Six's alone, but that requirement is not necessarily so. Within that chamber was a power that fed on the essence of our souls, taking more as Mayari struggled to relay her instructions.

"If we have lived our lives to our fullest potential, we are in equal parts equipped for what lays ahead and equal parts arming the final beast with an infinite source of power for retaliation." Okto raises his chin. "A measure of character and resolve lies before us."

"And Six is the centre of this entire mess," Quatre mutters, frowning. Quatre's vitriol since Six's return comes in ebbs and flows, but Six is only now starting to recognize it for what it is—a disdain for fate's whims, rather than Six himself. "Can't say I envy you."

As everyone talks, asking questions and speculating about the task ahead, Siete's fist clenches against the table. Before he can give it conscious thought, Six places his hand over it.

Siete turns to him so fast that all conversation stops, and Six thanks himself for having the foresight to wear his full mask around the base. His body reacted before his mind did, fuelled by a weak heart, and he attributes it to this meeting taking place in Mayari's domain, deep into the night.

Six still remembers how Siete had reacted when he was forced to kill on a mission as an Eternal. He doesn't know if Siete ever told the others—maybe Uno, but Siete only mentioned subduing the threats before moving on with a professionalism that sickened him at the time, knowing how affected Siete had been. It was the same professionalism that raised Six to carry out his eventual massacre as a child, one that he loathed.

Recognition flashes in Siete's eyes, and his hand slackens in Six's.

Six coughs to dislodge the discomfort stuck in his throat, shaking away the warm flush of embarrassment to speak with seriousness. "I am prepared for my permanent death for the sake of the one you have all lost, the one I do not remember. But none of you will release me.

"There may exist another way, but with a loss greater for us as a collective than if you would simply allow me to die."

It's odd how readily the idea springs to his mind. The faces that turn to him are familiar and unfamiliar. It's a shame that he cannot remember what the others tell him were the happiest years of his life.

What was the last happiness he felt? He tries to recall the memory of that man from so long ago, but this heart returned by Mayari remains unmoved in remembering that man to whom his blood father had trusted to take care of him, that man who failed to do so. He looks at everyone's expectant faces and hesitates to suggest sacrificing himself for the first time.

Siete's right hand twitches under his left, and the gold band he's only had the heart to remove once caresses his finger.

He wets his lips. "All ten of us embark on the final mission together. As a whole, we would have enough in spirit to distribute the sacrifice among ourselves in exchange for stabilizing the skydom."

Everything that Six lost was, and always will be, the Eternals. They were the things he'd loved, but he can see in their eyes that their own love extends further past the ten of them—and as he remembers his allies on the Grandcypher, he thinks he could uphold this skies for longer.

The silence is so thick that Six feels like a brute shattering it to continue. "I understand I am in no position to ask this of people I don't remember." He says this with a sarcastic grin, only for him under the mask.

"We're really gonna ride everything on a _guess?_ " Quatre scoffs."I know you've died once and you've gone toe-to-toe with two of these primal beasts already, Six, but there are too many variables. You really think we're just gonna agree and go, 'oh, yeah, no problem, let us sacrifice everything I love for a _chance_ at fixing this, a _chance_ that might not even work'? We don't get to do this again if we don't do it right the first time, like Six got." His words tumble out of his mouth, growing more indignant. "We won't get second chances."

Six doesn't waver. "The alternative is that I bear this burden alone, as I had once before, but this time without intending to return to life. As I've already said, this doesn't bother me. For the Eternals' safety, more than the rest of the skies—"

"No." Siete spits the word out, mouth hanging open after he says it, not meeting anyone's eyes. Six turns to face him; despite his own willingness, he never considered it a true option, either.

He wanted to live. Those were the words he couldn't say to Siete in that pub in that second of misunderstanding, but he kept it with him for so many years that this body inscribed it on every muscle as a promise, more unshakable than _'til death do us part_.

Siete laughs, dragging a hand down his face. "I know it's stupid, but—if Six is gonna try and tell me he wants to do this alone, then I'll join him, even if no one else does. I can't just fucking _watch_ this anymore."

Esser's expression twists with uncertainty when she interjects, "Even with two primal beasts defeated, we have little more than conjecture. All we know is that each defeat so far required a sacrifice, both of which Six's excessive one in death supported."

Okto clears his throat. Every time he speaks, the room waits. He remains imposing, but his eyes have softened during his time with the Eternals, passing over everyone before resting on Funf. "I have wandered years upon years on this earth. I have forgotten parts of myself, and others I have willingly struck from memory. I do not consider myself near death, but there are others that have much more life within them. What greater commemoration of my spirit than to abandon it to reinforce those who would follow?" There is no resignation in his voice, only a drive to move forward. "These years of mine would be put to better use to bolster the generations to come."

A heavy silence falls over the room, and Siete breaks it by taking a deep breath. His fist clenches under Six's. "Okay, so that makes two for 'willing sacrifices that aren't just Six', including me."

"I don't like this," Quatre grits out, the sound of his teeth grinding audible, but there's clarity in his narrowed eyes when he opens them again. Okto's words have left a mark on him, and if he's anything like what Six remembers, he's thought of Stardust Town, of those he would leave behind. "But there are things more important than my own life. Besides, the _Eternals_ are too stubborn not to return alive."

"Three."

"That's me!" Sarasa shoots her hand into the air. Her smile is bright, but her blind determination carries compassion that startles Six less and less. "You guys just have to teach me how to be me again, though."

"That's easy," Quatre says, "we just need to knock a few brain cells out of you."

She sticks her tongue out.

Esser raises her hand. "I am of the same mind as my brother. Should this threat continue to spread, and I have not done everything I can for the generations ahead of me, then I cannot call myself an Eternal in good conscience."

After glancing around the room, Nio nods. "Okto has now joined Six in his discordant harmony, beside myself, Funf, and Uno. It's slight, but the sacrificial altar that was Mayari's podium took souvenirs from all five of us. I fear we may never be in time with anyone's melodies again if this ancient harmony remains tangled in the skies."

Six doesn't miss how Song raises her left hand, her band of silver glinting with the light of the meeting room. "If I can't leave behind a good world for Cucouroux and Camieux—for _Silva_ , then I can't live with myself. If we're just going to give up now, why did we make Six go through any of this? Why did we become Eternals in the first place?"

Uno nods. "I, too, must take this to its conclusion. To harness such power for myself and the Eternals, only to retreat when the world is unravelling in front of my eyes, is inconceivable."

Funf bites her lip, but still holds her chin high. "I can't let Grampy do all the hard work alone!" When the childish nickname slips out, a few of the Eternals tilt their heads toward her with curiosity. "If he forgets his own memories, someone's gotta keep him in line, and it's gotta be me!"

Six sighs, and the simple action commands everyone's attention. "Stop asking me if I'm joining. It would be useless if the nine of you did this without me."

Siete never removes his hand from Six's. He breathes out in small increments and sounds steady when he next speaks. "The fact that today's primal beast slowed time instead of speeding it up or repeating it worked to the team's advantage, but we won't be doing this immediately.

"We need to train, research what we can, and prepare. But if all ten of you want this, I'll lead us into battle until the end. Know this."

"You deaf?" Sarasa exclaims. "We just said we'd do it!"

"I know, I know." Siete laughs to relieve tension. "But I'm giving you guys time to back out and think about it without the pressure of everyone agreeing. Do whatever you need to do." The gravity of the situation weighs on him as he says the next words. "Tie up your loose ends.

"But man. Intervening with the decay of the primal beasts that supervise the passage of time for the entire skydom? It's exactly the kind of thing I'd think we'd end up with when we first started, anyway." He chuckles, shaking his head. "If this is our final stand, let's make it count. As the sky's sacrifice.

"We can meet again in a few days, but we'll embark in two week's time." He loosens his fist so he can hold Six's hand, palm against palm, and Six curls his fingers around them in return.


	6. weeks

Where Six once dreaded the deep night and the sunrise, he now accepts it. Hanan's curse has become Mayari's blessing, and the dawn becomes easier to bear the the long night stretching before her in rest. Under the moonlight, he is no longer alone. In the half-asleep haze of the quiet base and its flickering orange lights after the sun bids farewell, he finds feelings attached to lost memories, with no logic but his soul still at ease.

In the lull of sleep, he receives ghost kisses against the crown of his head, on his forehead, his cheeks _._ In this half-awake base of theirs, the warmth of someone's hand squeezing his feeds into a streak of selfishness, urging him to chase the simple pleasure of contact. The dim lamps cast shadow puppets that make his lips curl up with their nonsensical dance, stories of the Eternals without endings _._

This calm doesn't return to him in any way that he can predict. But this time, instead of wanting to create distance from the unfamiliar, he lets it come to rest in the debris of his broken present. His heart has settled into this defective rib cage beneath the seven starburst patterns, singing songs he doesn't know the words to, and he remembers what he told himself while sparring:

_Let your emotions guide your body. Let them show your_ _path_ _home._

During the two weeks between the meeting and the mission, it becomes easier to land hits in practice spars with the Eternals. Accepting his loss guides him, more than he ever would have allowed in the past.

The first Eternal against whom he wins a spar since the day he died is against Siete.

No one looks more surprised than Siete himself when Six throws him onto the ground after disarming him, trapping him by planting his claws on either side of his head. Six thinks, for the first time, that if Siete looks up at him like this, red and panting and with a grin that glitters with possibilities, he could kiss him.

No, he's wrong. This isn't the first time. Six has wanted to kiss him before now.

He recalls the sight of him in the sick bay after the mission at Cenea, bloodied and bruised from jumping out the window, yet brightening with optimism when Six walked in to berate him.

It must have been before that, when Siete fell asleep in the most uncomfortable position in his _own room_ , and the only thing he could do for him other than carrying him to his bed was to put a blanket over his shoulders and leave him to sleep.

No— _before_ that, in the pub where Six finished a warm meal that should have sated him, but the prickly edge of impatience persisted as he tried to figure out why he was so bothered by the prospect of Siete finding love.

How far back did it go? How long has he been saving this confession to himself for a later time, only for that time never to come?

"Are you gonna sit on me all day?" Siete purrs up at him. It reverberates through his body in a way Six does and doesn't remember. Six has pinned him against the floor for so long that their breathing is steady, but the insinuation makes the cursed heart in his chest beat faster again, and he clambers off of him with a parting flick of his fingers against his forehead.

Siete still keeps his distance with Six, but Six's craving for proximity is swallowing him whole—not because he's never been close to someone before, but because he lost that closeness and he wants nothing more than to find it again. That's the _difference_ , he realizes, between who he became and who he once was. The difference between hopelessness and fighting _again_ for a hope that he surrendered once before.

He refrains from talking about the mission. None of the Eternals need the reminder as they live each day preparing for their final moments. Still, optimism bleeds through the heart that Mayari returned to him. He trains the hardest, offers his assistance when possible, and has the clearest view on the sisters' magic. He wants to give this body back to the one who deserved it, even if it meant not occupying it for himself. He wants to be the person who the Eternals believe he is, lending his strength so unconditionally that he had died for it.

He wants to be the husba—

(His thoughts falter, the confidence fading away.)

The husb—

( _Siete, on one knee, looking up at him with a cheeky grin and the moon hung in his eyes._ )

The—

( _Siete, holding his hand in the dark._ )

He wants to be the man that Siete believes he is.

(That first win is an embarrassing memory, as things tend to be with Siete—but it cannot overwrite the moment after he removed his weight off Siete's body, storming to the exit of the training room with his ears flat against his head.

At the doorway, he paused to turn around.

Siete didn't look at him from where he was still lying on the ground, arms behind his head, eyes turned up to the high ceilings. A smile of pure contentment played on those lips that Six couldn't bring himself to kiss in that moment, and then it was gone.)

* * *

The second night after returning from Mayari's chamber, he returns to Siete's room. Siete lets him in and takes his place on the floor, but Six breaks their ritual first; without looking at him, he sits on the bed instead, feeling the mattress sink under his weight. He could turn to look at Siete's face, see what expression he wears, but the fear of what he would find paralyses him.

He breathes out, another part of him lost. He brings his knees up to his chest, shifts to lie on top of the covers, and curls up into himself.

If the bed he was sleeping in before reminded him of Siete, this bed was _made_ of him. His racing thoughts override the comfort of a familiarity he doesn't understand, and he grits out a sigh.

"At least put the blanket on you." Siete's voice envelops him in warmth. "It's chilly tonight."

He struggles to breathe as he hears Siete walk to the other side. He lays with their backs almost touching, slipping under the covers without wrapping them around Six. It's an invitation that Six doesn't take, frozen with anxiety.

Siete's breathing steadies out into the rhythm of sleep with no problems, and Six follows the ebb and flow until his own dreamless rest visits him.

He still wakes up early to the sunrise, but the panic this morning comes not from a nightmare and instead from the fact that his own arms drifted to hold Siete during sleep. Siete embraces him back, one arm under his neck and another around his waist.

Six has apologies ready on his lips, self-loathing trickling in and leaving him lightheaded, but Siete doesn't stir. He looks so peaceful that despite his own discomfort, Six leaves him be, watching the sun's early rays paint strokes of orange across his resting face until sleep takes him once more.

* * *

The other Eternals travel to meet with loved ones. Six has little outside of this base that this body and heart call _home_ , even if his mind still can't comprehend. He should be used to this place being empty, but the void in its halls unsettles him, and he dedicates more time than he should to committing each of the photos hanging in their frames to memory.

After seeing his life unfold beside the Eternals and their allies through the years, he sets aside a day to visit the Grandcypher. Despite their best efforts, the Eternals' mission is not as discreet as they planned, judging by their encouragements as they pass his uniform and his billowing cape in the halls.

He intends to return to base after everyone bombards him in Raduga with drinks and old stories, but the Grandcypher's orbit comes too close to an island that once haunted him in each waking breath. At his request, they leave him there to face his old ghosts.

Xing's traps, once so meticulous, are now rusty with no one to trigger them. Each crunch of twigs and leaves under his feet brings to mind the other children playing as he was caged behind fear and superstition. Their faded laughter is as innocent as the overgrown greenery that now brushes against his arms, welcoming him to his past as he stands in the heart of the old hamlet. Wildlife skitters around him, emerging from under the shade after seeing him as one of their own, life to reclaim old blood. He wonders how many of these trees grow with bones of the clan inside them, crushed and left to the mercy of nature.

This place is no longer quiet, and Xing is no longer alone. Each step in the Karm hamlet reminds him of parts of himself he could never lose. _There_ , underneath the dappled shadows of a tree that was a mere sapling in his memory, is where that skyfarer taught him about his name. _Here_ , lost under gnarled knots and chipped bark, is where the old journal from his blood father once lay.

 _Always_ —at the entrance to the hamlet, indiscernible if one didn't know where to look, Siete.

Xing recalls seeing him for the first time, rising with hope that the skyfarer returned for him and crashing back down to the earth when it wasn't. _Everywhere_ in this clearing is where Siete fought him with blades and words in equal measure, making his blood boil until it restarted his stagnating heart.

For the first time, he returns to the hamlet with the knowledge that his blood stains the dirt underneath his feet as much as that of those whom he killed. Everyone in the Karm clan had blood on their hands; everyone in the Karm clan had a body they cared about burying in this earth.

_What do you have left to protect here?_

"Nothing," he murmurs with only ghosts as his witness. The leaves around him absorb his voice until he can't hear his own words, his audience to a new promise taking root in forgotten soil. "But I should say my farewells, or perhaps warn the ghosts here that I will join them soon."

He knows that when he's finished here, Siete will be waiting at the docks for him. He didn't tell Gran to pick him up, nor did he leave instructions for Gran to fetch anyone, but Siete will come. He always does. They may return to an empty base while the other Eternals are travelling, but in a mere week, they will return to complete their sacrifice as a whole.

Xing takes nothing with him but his name as he exits, determined to leave the past here to move forward.

"Soon, but not yet." At the entrance, he whispers, "Something still remains for me before my blood can join this earth," and the hamlet guards his words as he turns his back on it.

* * *

(That night, he knocks on Siete's door. Siete greets him with a tired smile and a _hey, I've been piloting all day, so I might just pass out tonight instead of, like, waxing poetic._ Six greets him with a nod, a brush of their left hands against each other, and he walks past him to lay down on his side of the bed.)

* * *

Every night until the mission, he sleeps in Siete's room. That first night was dreamless, but now, Six sees things, unsure if they're memories or fabrications that his mind has brought forth from the peace that settles over him now that he lets himself sleep in Siete's arms. There, surrounded by him, is the place that causes him the most anxiety when he's awake but the same one that gives him the most restful sleep.

It's easy to fall in love with Siete. It always has been. His past and his present (his present and his future) dance together under the brilliant sky blue of Siete's eyes, filled with love beyond words.

No longer avoiding isolation with the others, he regains small moments. These moments follow no logical sequence, but the flashes of time he gains cumulates into hours. His mind grants him no world-shattering events in perfect clarity that match the love he couldn't contain in that photo, still face down in the drawer of his old room. Their wedding still evades him, the proposal outside the limits of his imagination. But the more he regains, the more he realizes that Siete has always commanded his love and devotion.

No, he doesn't command it. Six can't help but give it to him, knowing it'll be safe with him.

Six's capacity to love has always cursed him, doomed to care but only for those who couldn't return feelings, only for those that would only leave him behind. It pained him to love, but to receive love in kind pained him more.

But Siete met his hollow shell, his horrors, his clan's legacy—Siete had met every side of him halfway and then _more_ , until he stood next to him. And in return, Siete shares his insecurities and concerns with the team, now following his jokes with reassurance. His bombastic nature softens outside of battle, revealing the soft edges of his love for the Eternals.

Six can't hate him when he's this way. He turns his baseless irritation for Siete inwards for his inability to accept who Siete has become. All he has to do is give in, his mind whispers.

The words are familiar.

* * *

Six waits until Uno's been back for a few days before finding him in the garden, meditating alone.

In retrospect, talking to him during meditation might not have been the greatest idea, but Uno pauses regardless when Six exits the base and walks toward him, taking the time to greet him. "Six," he greets, moving to sit cross-legged against the dirt instead of levitating.

"Uno. If I may ask something of you."

Six sits with him, and Uno offers him the first smile he's seen since the mission with Hanan. Although his eyes still have a layer of defense, he meets Six's invitation without turning away. He no longer looks at Six with regret.

Realizing what he's about to ask makes him falter. His back-straight posture wavers with his embarrassment, and he sinks his face in his hands. "When… Siete first asked me out on a date," he starts, each word making this idea worse, "he told me I rejected him instantly, before I…"

He lifts his head high enough from his hands to see Uno hiding his surprised smile behind his mustache, and he groans.

"Before I… _yelled_ about how his romantic whims swayed me." He grimaces when he uses Siete's words, and it elicits a laugh out of Uno. "He said to ask you if it was true. Although in retrospect, it must have been rhetorical."

"That it may have been," Uno says. Six can hear the amusement in his voice. The easy joking placates him as much as it makes him want to sink into the earth and never return. "But it was a story he retold often, to your chagrin—and even then, you could never resist smiling as he did so. We had no reason to believe it was untrue, especially after you confirmed it yourself."

Six groans, sinking further.

"No need to feel embarrassed." Uno's voice softens as he pats Six on the shoulder, and then he murmurs, "Despite everything, your love for each other persists."

Making a low grumbling noise, Six peeks between his fingertips. He can tell that his face is flushed red, but it's easier to accept this from Uno, who sheds his mischief to be serious.

In silence, Uno held the guilt of failing to save him from Hanan, repeating the tragedy that first made him seek power. Unlike Funf and Nio, Six knows that he won't apologize—and like the other two, there is no need. This is the closest that Uno will come to expressing his remorse for his failure, and he accepts it.

"Thanks," Six mumbles into his hands. "A… _love_ I can't remember, but something all the same."

"After the trials the two of you went through to get together, I don't think even the heavens itself can tear you apart." It sounds like an admission of his guilt, inching ever closer to apologizing to Six, but never saying those words.

"It's not just the heavens we have to look out for," Six mumbles. "It's hell, too. Everything but ourselves."

Six lifts his mouth to reveal a clumsy, fanged grin that graces his lips for just a second. Uno responds in kind before he hides it again.

* * *

With four nights left before the Eternals embark on their mission, Six searches for a part of him he hid away. He doesn't have many loose ends remaining, but the man that the Eternals lost—the one that Six is regaining, piece by piece—is restraining something that he wanted to ignore.

He won't retreat into Siete's for the night until he does this—and he still can't call Siete's room his own, not yet. That requires conscious thought, even if his body and his heart consider it _theirs_.

He sits at his desk, a different man from almost one month ago. This time, he opens the top drawer and takes out the photo from the wedding, unafraid to acknowledge it. He still doesn't recognize himself, but it no longer causes him pain to know that he existed in this moment.

That acceptance makes his eyes gravitate to Siete instead of focusing on the mystery of his smile. Here, Siete looks more like the one he sees in the waking life, but with fragments missing; he knows that brilliance is still there, hidden under the depths of adversity. It feels wrong to see Siete lose his lustre, but at least now, Six can name their love for what it is and what it could be in the picture. He puts it back on the desk before turning back to the drawer. That's all he needs for now.

With the photograph gone, the letter he wrote sits there, waiting for him. He can't seal it again, but it'll be better this way, Six thinks as he slides it back into its envelope. He read this letter and still decided to give it to Siete, with whom it belonged.

The final thing for him to take is the present, unopened. He turns the items over in his hand, waiting until the blue sky catches fire with the sunset's brilliant orange.

Under the faded, scattered stars of night, he knocks on Siete's door.

"You really don't have to knock," Siete says as the door creaks open, the greeting as much a part of their ritual as Six knocking. His desk lamp is still on, casting a warm glow over a room where the sun has retired for the day. "You can lie down if you want, but I've got all these letters to finish writing back to the Grandcypher. Real lively bunch. Gran really sold us out here by telling everyone what we were up to." His smile is faraway, but it focuses whenever it lands on Six.

Six closes the door behind him, watching his eyes trail from his half-masked face to the items in Six's hands. "Siete," he starts, "the mission is in four days."

"I know," Siete says. The distant look in his eyes grows ever farther, cheerful demeanour falling away to the broken one he could never hide for too long. His next words are a murmur. "I know."

Six leans against his desk, waiting until Siete sits back down before placing the picture from their wedding beside him. He doesn't intend to bring attention to it, but when he sees Siete's eyes wander to it, he realizes it's inevitable for either of them to look away from the most open display of their love imaginable. "I never returned this to its frame from that night." He says it like an apology for the way Siete's face twists with recognition, how he reaches out for the photo with shaking hands, afraid to ruin it.

Siete looks at the photo, and Six looks at him. He shifts the letter and present to free his hand, putting it on Siete's shoulder and rubbing circles there with his thumb. He's done this enough times to feel the itch of muscle memory.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." With a sigh, Siete turns his mangled smile to him. "There are other pictures in that den for me to look at."

Six licks his lips. Dread fills his bones where marrow should be, and he wants nothing more than to leave and forget he ever attempted to close the distance between the two of them, but his heart won't let him. His body continues to move for him to keep Siete grounded with a simple touch. "It's not—I don't—" He didn't prepare for Siete to react to the photo before everything else, and he struggles to find the words. "The image is still foreign to me, but through your perseverance, I think I understand, at least in part, the feeling captured within me here."

Siete breaks their eye contact with a laugh, shaking his head. With a voice that sounds like he's about to reassure him, he starts, "It's all right, Six."

Six stops him. This isn't about him tonight. This is about Siete and what he lost. He squeezes Siete's shoulder to get him to stop, and with his resolve steeled, he asks, "Will you listen to me?"

"I'll always listen to you," Siete tells him. The words are so natural that Six wonders how many times he's asked that of him.

He turns away, unable to keep eye contact. "The first night I returned from my mission with Hanan, I found these in my room. My… old room." He stutters, testing the concept in his mouth. He offers Siete the card, and then the parcel. "On that night, I opened the letter, and I knew that those were my words and my handwriting. The seal on the letter is broken, but the present remains intact. He'd want you to have it." He frowns, and then he shakes his head. " _I_ do. I want you to have this."

In the silence that follows, Siete takes neither the card nor the present.

Six isn't sure what's happening at first when Siete puts his head in his hands, his fingers shaking with the effort to grip on to something solid. It's not until Siete's shoulders shiver and he expels a sob that panic strikes through Six like lightning.

Since joining the Eternals, Six has only known one instance of tragedy causing their leader to become vulnerable where others could see him. But ever since Six returned as less than himself, he saw more and more of that unfamiliar Siete until it reached this point, where the last vestige of his composure falls away.

He's moving before he can understand the scene before him. Numb, he puts the items on the table, kneels onto the ground, and holds him in his arms, the same way he wakes up to Siete's embrace. He brings a hand up to stroke his hair; the panic is still there, but the longer he stays with Siete, the more he wants to keep him there, close to his heart where he fits.

He has no concrete memories that tell him why he should care for Siete as much as he does, and yet, there's nowhere else he'd rather be but here. He should know not to trust his thoughts, so he makes the conscious decision to abandon reason and kiss his forehead.

Siete moves his hands from his face; he looks not at Six, but at the photo. "You know," he chokes out, "our actual—"

Another sob overtakes him, and Six kisses his temple, rubbing his hand against his back. He takes deep breaths to steady himself, and he holds on like he's afraid Six will disappear.

"Our actual wedding anniversary was two-and-a-half weeks ago."

The words turn his blood cold, a high-pitched noise ringing in his ears as he counts the days. It's been almost a month since Six died—"We didn't even make a year?"

It's the wrong thing to say, but it tumbles out of his thoughts and into the space between them as its own entity, laid bare with its barbs and poisoned fangs. Siete lets out a cry into his shoulder before trying to taper it out into a desperate, broken laugh. "Funny, isn't it?"

Nothing about it is _funny_. The realization catches in Six's throat, choking him, and he holds onto Siete like a lifeline. "I'm sorry." He can't think of a proper reason. He only _feels_ one. "For making you love me," he decides.

"What kind of _fucking_ —" Siete laughs as he cries, this time more incredulous. "That's the worst apology I've ever heard in my life. I'll never regret loving you."

"You should." Six's voice breaks at the end of his statement. He's falling apart, his mind unable to catch up with where his body and heart are.

And then, finally, he lets go.

He takes off his mask and buries his head in the crook of Siete's neck. He fights down every whisper telling him he's only aligning their hearts for disaster once again and murmurs, "I've done nothing but cause you pain—"

"Six, I love you, please never forget this, but I need you to shut up." Siete laughs again, gripping him tighter. "Never say that to me again. Never apologize for being a man I would give everything up for. I'd do it all again. I've said that before, and I'll say it a million times."

If there was anyone in this world that Six could believe when saying those words, it would be Siete. There would be nothing else, be it heaven's judgement or hell's scorn, that could stop him from believing those words from anyone's heart but Siete and Siete alone.

Against Siete's back, his left hand rests with the golden ring that he could only ever take off once, sewn into his soul as it was. Even in sleep he'd never removed it, and he knows why now when each knob of Siete's spine plays a different song under his fingers, each stuttering gasp of his an ornamentation for the metal's ballad. "I would too," Six whispers. "Why do I always find my way back to you?"

"I'm irresistible, for one." Siete laughs, throat clogged.

"You may be mistaken with the word 'irritating'."

Siete saves his breath to hold him before relaxing, and Six follows, sitting on the ground and leaning against the leg of the table. His bones ache like he hasn't moved in an eternity, but now, he's tethered in the same way Siete is to him as he pushes the chair out of the way, joining him on the floor. He leans up to grab the present and the card from the table.

Six has already read the card. He feels like an intruder watching Siete read the words of the man he lost, but Siete reaches for his left hand to keep himself stable as a new wave of tears form.

The man Siete hid underneath jokes and roundabout sentences was the one that kept Six in the Eternals, although he could never put the strange attraction into words until now. That emotional self that Siete hid away was the same one that cared about Six without ever admitting he cared, doing what he thought was best without revealing his hand. It was that side of him that always brought Six back into the world of the living, inciting him to action in times of strife while reminding him to exist outside of it.

Six died once, but he could die again, knowing that Siete once loved him and still does—for all that he is and all that he lost.

Siete puts the card in its envelope when he's finished reading, and Six seeks his hand when he takes it away. "I need both hands to open your present, love," Siete says with a teasing grin, and the nickname makes heat flush to his cheeks.

Siete notices—Siete always notices—and his eyes light up, and he laughs (and his embarrassment is worth it to not see a man like Siete so broken for even a moment).

He lets Siete open the present with both hands. He's warm enough with creeping realization when the wrapping paper unfolds to reveal a small, wooden box. Without even seeing its contents, Six knows that everything here is handmade in the way that only Six could make with _his_ hands; even in the low light, he can see the uneven lid, the crooked hinges, the burnt design on top.

"Never mind," Six mutters, reaching for it, but Siete pulls it out of his grasp. "Put that where it belongs."

"So, in my hands?"

"In the garbage."

Siete snorts. "Please, this is the best present anyone's ever given me and I haven't even opened it yet."

Six can hear the grin in his voice, even when he squeezes his eyes shut. "I've given you Pandora's Box." He groans, dragging his hands down his face. "Don't open that, lest you release all the world's despair."

"Worth it," Siete says, giddy like a child at Christmas. "You remember what was at the bottom of that box anyway, right?"

It's hard to forget the ending to a fable like that. Siete struggles to open the latch, haphazardly screwed on by Six's hands, and he can't look away from his softening expression as he takes in the contents of the flawed box.

Siete puts it down on the ground between them and takes out a disfigured tangle of metal chain, only recognizable as a necklace by the charcoal-coloured pendant strung through it. Six looks away, his face hot with embarrassment at the clumsy make.

"Hey, Six."

Six shakes his head, but Siete laughs, leaning over to nudge him. He doesn't move away once Six looks back at him, staying in his space.

"No, look at this." Without waiting for Six to respond, Siete's fingers fiddle with the pendant on the chain, half the size of his palm, and it flies open. He turns to face the contents of the locket to Six.

A clock's face greets him, the second hand ticking without a care for the world around it.

He looks up at Siete, eyebrows furrowed, and he bites down on his lip. Siete's eyes are wide, his incredulous grin stretching across his face as the second hand continues beating in his palm. "That," Six mutters, "is a sight to behold."

Something breaks inside him that he didn't realize was still intact; he lets out a chuckle, his entire body withering under the weight of his lost time safe in Siete's hands.

Siete lets out another laugh as he untangles the chain and undoes the latch, fastening it around his neck. "Tell me about it." When he sits up straight, the locket sits on his chest, over his heart, beating in time. Pleased with himself, Siete leans over to kiss him on the cheek. (His first kiss.) "All of that aside." He drops his head onto Six's shoulder, staying there for a few seconds. "Thank you."

"I didn't do anything," Six says on instinct. "At least, not the one inhabiting this body."

"It's still you, Six. It's you through and through, you know that?"

With Siete's heartbeat against his shoulder and the locket around his neck, he believes for the first time that Siete could have loved any version of him. "I do now," Six says. "Unfortunately."

"What's so unfortunate about it?"

"That I recognize who I was by being the only one capable of creating such an abomination."

Siete laughs as he sits up, and the sound is like daybreak after a long night.

* * *

This is not a nightmare he lost.

The teacup has a jagged line running down the middle, and the tea overflows. His claws are trapped in the table, and Siete's hand is not over his to calm him. He looks up to see that man's face, and it is featureless, with skin stretched smooth over where a face should be. He puts on his hat and turns away; that much is the same.

The tea is crimson and seeps into the grain of the wood to turn it into the same shade of rotten flesh. The wood decays into dirt. The stench of blood is thick, the cloying smell of rotting corpses making a saccharine home in his nose, tendrils of death snaking into his throat and blooming in his lungs. He falls onto his knees and the blood flows viscous from his palms, slithering up his arms and constricting his neck.

His mouth forms a soundless cry as he falls backwards. The ghosts of everyone he's ever killed by his hands catch him in the same way one would catch a sickness. He's a child again now, _the chosen one_ of the Karm hamlet to receive all of their scorn. He inhabits no physical body, but they create one for him by layering scars on his frame by spitting at him, kicking him, throwing rocks at him.

He scratches at the binds around his neck until he draws blood, and still they choke him. The holes he tears in his throat aren't enough to drain the life from his lungs, and he screams to relieve the pressure building inside his veins.

 _Six,_ he hears in Siete's voice, far away. This was never a part of his nightmares. It calls from the crowd, somewhere he can't follow. _Six!_

His eyes shoot open, and he gasps for air. Something renders him immobile. He flails his arms, but they're restrained. The panic surges before he forces it down—his legs are fine, so he kicks at the weight trapping him, and the weight above him makes a noise and lets him go. His hand flies up to target the intruder's vital areas, and they make a noise again—he pauses with his hand gripped in their neck, holding them up off the bed.

"I do like when you're rough with me," Siete wheezes out, "but this isn't quite what I had in mind."

As if burned, he recoils from Siete, curling into himself and pressing the balls of his palm into his eyes so hard that he sees sparks fly. Siete coughs to his side before moving next to him again, sitting at the edge of the bed. Six's skin tears under his nails, scratching into his forehead, pain blossoming by his fingertips.

Siete sucks air through his clenched teeth, and his hands dart out to remove Six's from his face. "Sorry," he stumbles to say, letting go of him not a moment later. Six lets his arms go limp against his side. "I know you wouldn't want me to touch you when you're not used to it—you'd ask me to hold you back whenever you had nightmares like this."

Six inhales and lets the air out in choking gasps, still hyperventilating. He doesn't remember the last time a nightmare gripped him until he couldn't regain control even after he woke up.

"Can I touch you?"

Siete keeps talking to him, his voice loud in the gentle night. "Quiet—" The words chokes him as it exits his throat, and he moves one of his hands to his neck. He should have ripped the skin and muscle clean from his bone, but when he removes his hand, no blood mars his fingertips.

"You were scratching yourself in your sleep again. Took me a while to figure out what was happening." He can tell Siete's trying to keep his voice neutral, but his guilt seeps through porcelain cracks.

"It's not your responsibility to be my keeper," he spits out, shutting his eyes tight. He breathes. The clean air poisons his polluted frame.

"It's not, no. But if you think I'm going to watch you suffer when I love you and I can do something about it, then you've got another thing coming."

Six throws an arm over his eyes. He breathes, in and out, in and out.

"Can I hold your hand?"

Siete won't stop talking. Siete won't stop _asking_. He turns onto his side and curls into himself. He hears Siete breathe in, and he hears Siete breathe out. Siete won't stop making noises that remind him he's not alone in this suffering, and he's torn between lashing out or collapsing under his humiliation.

"I—" Siete won't leave him be, but Six doesn't know how to _leave_. All of his notions of giving in and letting his heart take control have disappeared, leaving him gripping his own arms until his fingernails draw the same blood that once sang in his heart to _love Siete without fear_. "How can you stay beside me when I hurt you in my _sleep_? Do you know the monster I become when I'm not in control of my own actions?"

The word _monster_ hisses between his lips and scratches against his bared fangs. It tastes rusty against his tongue, something he'd delegated into the unimportant corners of his mind.

Siete stops breathing. When he resumes, he speaks with the burden of _loving_ someone like him. "It makes you alive, Six. It makes you human."

"I'm—"

"Okay, you're an Erune—that's not the point, you're trying to distract me." The stupid joke stings, but Siete's voice is so sweet, so understanding, that it further saps Six's energy to fight against it. "The point is, Six, given everything, we can expect you to have a nightmare every once in a while, but you don't have to suffer through it alone."

"Why do you subject yourself to this?" He breathes. It comes out steadier than before, but tears sting at his eyes, and he opens them to stare out into the darkness.

Siete doesn't lie down next to him, but he sits with his back against the headboard, and he puts a hand on Six's shoulder. Six freezes, turning away from it, but Siete keeps his hand there, stroking his upper arm, remaining his anchor. "To what?"

The question throws him off guard. "Isn't it obvious?"

"With how many times you've called me an idiot, I'd think you'd know by now to explain things to me."

Siete won't stop talking, and by making Six respond, it teaches him how to bring air into his lungs again. He swallows. "I hurt you."

"Nothing that won't go away in a minute. My neck's thick _and_ sexy as hell. I'm more worried about you."

"Then why do you care?"

"If I tell you it's because I love you, you'll ask me _why_ I love you next."

"It doesn't make sense." He syncs his breathing to the pattern Siete's hand rubs against his arm. He wants—What does he want? What he _wants_ is more comfort than he can allow for himself. He wants to turn around and embrace him.

And then, once Siete is in his arms, what would he do? Hurt him again? He pulls away from Siete's touch and tries to crawl out of bed—but this time, Siete holds onto him. "Okay, I've been giving you your space, but you _have_ to know I'm not letting you go after that one."

He doesn't break free of Siete's grip. "Caring about me will kill you one day, and it will be by these bloodied hands—"

"You wanna know something?" Siete doesn't wait for a response. "'One day', my ass—When you died, I lost just as much of myself as you did. You lost _the_ _exact_ _amount_ _of time_ that we spent together, Six." The sigh that emerges from his lips shudders on unstable ground, and Six stares with unfocused eyes into the darkness as Siete pulls him from it. His heart thunders in his chest, pressed against Six's back. "And you know what? I told you earlier tonight, and I'll tell you now, and however many times it takes, but I'd do _everything_ again. With _you_."

"You're..." Six swallows. He only starts the sentence for the sake of starting it, because _still_ Siete evokes such an easy reaction out of him that he can't help but rise to the opportunity.

He leans his head on Siete's shoulder. He almost expects a kiss. He shouldn't expect one, and he doesn't get it. What Siete does instead is lean his forehead against his, and together, they remember how to breathe.

"You're a moron," Six decides on saying. His throat rebels against him again, but he forces the words out. "Nothing you do makes sense."

"Love doesn't, no." Despite being next to him, his low mutter resonating through his body, Siete sounds far away. "But at least it means we don't go through uncharted territory alone. When nothing makes sense, everything makes sense."

"Is your plan to confuse me so I have no choice but to sleep to escape you?"

"Sure. Just as long as you understand that I've been there for your nightmares before." Siete pauses. "It's a lot to ask for you to trust me when you don't remember me, isn't it." His questioning tone falls flat.

He doesn't know this Siete, no—but every part of him except conscious mind reaches to have him back. "I do, and I don't. But the important parts of me remember the important parts of you."

"Please explain yourself before I try and make a dirty joke to—to—I don't know, pretend that I have any goddamn control over what you make me feel—"

Underneath every one of the doubts in his mind, his heart speaks out for him before his nightmare can return. "I want to be here. With you." Six says it with the reverence of worshippers at a temple at the centre of the world, lost in the throes of time. He says it with the veneration one would put into wedding vows, a kaleidoscope of colours to illuminate their promise. He says it with the moonlight fading away behind them, the beginnings of sunrise showing her face. "If you would let me."

Siete's head drops onto his shoulder, and he buries his face there. Moisture dots his skin, and seconds later, Siete sniffles. "Are you sure you didn't lose your hearing along with your memories? I already told you. Forever, Six."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit [apr 28, 2020]: [BILLIE DREW FANART FOR THE ANNIVERSARY PRESENT STUFF I'LL CRY](https://twitter.com/astrallevin/status/1255145825337880579) thank you but also i am in tears


	7. once upon another time. (interlude)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the people by six's side, and the ones they love.

The Eternals treat this mission as if it was their last, despite their expectations of returning. Anything other than utmost faith in their success would doom them.

Two weeks doesn't feel like enough for any of them to write a conclusion to their years of life, together and apart, but as their battle plans solidify, they grow impatient to restore balance to the skydom at the price of their own histories.

Uno informs Sierokarte of their mission in passing, telling her he'll return after she closes for the night so they can spend time together without impacting business. Instead, she turns sombre, and she leaves her shop to someone else for the day before closing early, gathering everything the Eternals need in a matter of hours. It's been a while since he could pass time with her like this—their lives are busy, but not too busy to put aside obligations for a day and night reminiscing about life before the Eternals, all the way into his childhood.

Siete contacts the Grandcypher for business and business only, expecting Quatre to relay the ugly details to Gran himself. He warns Gran not to alert his crew about the mission, but the next day, a flood of letters comes in from their allies. _You can't tell them what to do,_ Gran writes in a precursor note sitting on top of the pile, and Siete dedicates the day handing out the letters to the Eternals and reading alongside them. Among that pile is a letter from Narmaya to Okto and Funf, and soon the two of them disappear to visit her at old haunts, through the same mountains and valleys of their unsteady history. At the peak of the mountain where Narmaya and Okto fought, they sparred once more as a reminder of the path they travelled for reconciliation.

Continuing the trend of delivering the news to their allies, Siete also sits down with Terra, Sarasa and Funf beside him as support. She existed long before even Okto was born, a force of time beside them as they fight a force of time against them; in those years, she's grown to love them as her own. They tell her to destroy the base against her back if they don't return, but she narrows her eyes, as slow as the sun's set. She's too attached, and arguing with her is an act of patience as she insists for them to stay without words, the shake of her head rumbling the earth around her instead. They intend to return home, but there is still the possibility that they couldn't—and after a long heart-to-heart, she relents.

The twins disappear for almost an entire week to Stardust Town, and when they come back, they hold their heads high, knowing that they've distributed what they need among the remaining organizers of the no-longer-slums. Song disappears for the same stretch of time to visit Silva and her family, with an extra few days to visit her old hometown; despite her lifelong isolation, she's gone for the longest time among them.

Nio travels with her friends from Sky Philharmonic to play her final concertos, both in concert halls and in rehearsal spaces without witness but themselves. She doesn't return to the base once she's done, instead travelling to one city on every island of the skydom in disguise, playing the melodies within the population's everyday lives by the side of the road.

They return with extra provisions and more letters of support. Despite their efforts to keep their mission discreet, the undercurrent of hope reaches the people around them, reflected back to them from the skydom's perpetual cloud cover to bolster their spirits.

* * *

A week before, Siete makes another journey to Arawo's capital alone to relay their plans of confronting their final enemy to Aquino, warning that it may be necessary to evacuate people from Mayi due to the unpredictable nature of the primal beast. The words _restore balance_ carry a grave weight, but Siete can find no other way to convey how the Eternals have prepared to meet their end for the sake of the skies.

He expects more time to receive a response, but with two of the sisters unbound, partial stability returns to the island. He receives reports of townspeople and soldiers alike remembering day-to-day memories, but still, they've lost many years; their foundations are broken, yet they can and _do_ live on, one day at a time.

When Siete returns one night after visiting the island itself, he stands unseen in the main entrance and watches the Eternals in the common area, rejuvenated from their own travels with determined smiles and stories to share. Despite the graveness of their task ahead, they still find the time to enjoy each other's company.

He sneaks by Quatre presenting Nio with drawings of her from Stardust Town's children; he allows himself a grin as he tiptoes past Song giving Sarasa a box of homemade cookies that she'll devour in mere seconds. He carries the images of everyone gathering together to his workshop, taking down each of the Heaven's Mercies off the wall along the way. He'll have to ask a few of the Eternals for theirs, and still, they are more symbolic than they are functional—but as he starts up his forge and drafts up scabbards, he thinks he could make this request for their final battlefield.

* * *

All too soon, and not soon enough, the day of the mission arrives on the edge of sunrise. They say their goodbyes to Terra, and she nudges them before tilting her head toward her back, as if to say _I_ _wi_ _ll keep_ _after this place until you return_. _I will keep a home which you_ _can call yours_.

With all ten Mercies gleaming in the early sun, they bid her farewell.

* * *

The Eternals' airship is discreet, but like their uniforms, friends and foes alike have come to recognize it. It carries within it only five cabins; Siete intended for this vessel to be temporary. Should all ten of them need this ship, it would mean that no one was at the base, on a mission, or out in the skies assisting someone.

Now, the air inside their full ship is charged with anticipation so thick that it feels like one wrong move would cause a spark. Uno sharpens his spear to a fine point as Quatre renews the leather on his daggers. This is a pre-battle routine that they developed in silence, a way to ease Quatre's nerves—because Uno can read it in every line of tense muscle that Quatre is worried, perhaps about not returning, about leaving business unfinished.

Quatre has never been shy about his motivations, least of all to Uno, with whom he fought beside since the Eternals' inception. Uno is no stranger to his story. From the moment he could close his fingers around a weapon, Quatre sought strength beyond imagination to prevent further loss from falling upon those he loved, going so far as to nearly lose himself in his pursuit.

Their mission today should be a natural conclusion to their stories: that they should lose the Eternals for the world's sake, lest the world destroy itself from the inside out for only the Eternals to remain intact.

Uno finishes his preparations first, and he stands up to launch his spear into the opposite wall.

His eyes sparkle when Quatre groans. "How many times have you beat me, now?"

Taking his spear from the wall, he smiles. "My advantage is that I only own one weapon to tend to."

"I was almost done," Quatre says, and when Uno sits beside him to sharpen his spear again, he throws his daggers at the same wall in quick succession. Both of them stick. "Whether I have one dagger or one thousand makes no difference."

With their little competition over, they work with more thoroughness to inspect each other's weapons, testing weak points and keeping a watchful eye on their magical reserves. During a lull in the activity, where their weapons are sharp once more but they have yet to test their armour, Quatre asks, "Isn't this fucked up?"

"There are many questionable things about this mission. You should be specific," Uno says, checking his spear's grip one last time for imperfections.

"That we're the only ones that can do this."

"If you doubt your resolve, stay behind." It would sound like an insult on any other day, but Siete belaboured that they could back out at any time before climbing the mountain and no one would hold it against them. "Members of the Grandcypher will be stationed during our battle. If we find that we need someone else, I'm sure our allies there would assist us."

"That's the thing," Quatre mutters. His hands stutter as he tightens the leather around his daggers, imperceptible to anyone that doesn't know him. He may be meticulous in controlling outward shows of emotion, but for a certain captain, some things fall apart. "Who can go if we ask the Grandcypher? Who are their most powerful members? What, the _Twelve Heavenly Generals_? The disciples? The Dragon Knights, the knights from Irestill—everyone still needs them if they die. They're tied to countries and legacies and _people_.

"At least we're self-contained." Quatre's laugh lacks humour. "We've always been shitty vigilante justice that somehow became _friends_ along the way. It's fucked up. Siete's right, that we're all basically sacrificing ourselves for..."

"The things we care about," Uno says with a knowing smile. "The pursuit of power has always been a uniting force among us ten, and over time it has converged into caring for those we love the most. We may not carry a legacy as other honourable knights and rulers, but we are not alone in these skies."

"It's just fucked up that we could lose everything. 'Everything' like the skydom, and 'everything' like each other." Quatre fought for so long to prevent the same loss that once struck Uno as a child. The strife keeps him grounded even now, but alongside power, Quatre has been chasing peace—and peace has never been permanent. He's been on the run for as long as he's been alive, always approaching but never touching. "I'm used to living like that, but there's a whole lot of _everything_ now. It used to be just me and my sister, then the rest of Stardust Town, and then A—Siete, and God knows it hasn't stopped since he came and found us."

"That may well be why we label the most coveted things in life as pursuits. Peace, love, happiness, security. Transient things." They've long since cast their weapons aside for this conversation, leaning against the workbench to stare at the blue skies passing them by. "But these pursuits define existence, do they not?"

"You get kinda sick of it sometimes." Quatre sighs. His earlier tension fades away by a fraction. "But I guess you're right. Let's go check our armour before it's too late."

"Had enough of talking?"

"Only to you," Quatre says, nudging him with a foot as he walks out of the room, closing his hand around the hilt of the sword Siete left for him and fixing it onto his hips once more. He waves a hand over his shoulder. "I already know there's a life to live. For people like us, this is just how we're gonna do it until our last goddamn breath."

* * *

Nio has long since grown used to the Eternals' repertoire, familiar with each movement of their pieces. Six's suite may have been playing a reprise in the past month to muddle her thoughts, but still, she could find something recognizable. It's rare that the ten of them are in sync with their emotions, and now that they're unanimous in _nervousness_ , it resonates too well with her own.

This synchronized act will grant her more solace than pain, but until then, she sits in the common area, taking each of the Eternals' melodies one by one before making them whole once more. Esser sits behind her; she is the most nervous, but her song remains one of the most soothing ones among the ten of them. She alleviates her anxious energy by combing her fingers in Nio's hair, tying it up out of her face and experimenting with hairstyles before deciding against them.

"We talk about how we never see Six's face because of the mask, but we never see yours because of your bangs." Esser brings Nio's hair back in a headband, and Nio squints.

"...I'm not used to this much light." She sighs, closing her eyes. "But we'll need every advantage we can get."

"Your hair looks nice tied back." The teeth of the headband Esser took from her jewelry box scratches at her scalp. "I wish we did this more often."

"Time got away from us during these years, didn't it? I'd like to listen to your melodies for longer."

"We'll be around for a while," Esser says, her voice steady, but she can't hide the turmoil that strikes halfway through her concerto.

"This crew is full of stubborn people." Nio sighs. With Esser's melody to anchor her, she feels secure in extending her reach to listen to the Eternals' songs. The anxiety is still there in each melody, but with a solid foundation behind her, she uncovers the same theme that defines them, a rising crescendo in the face of any adversity. "I doubt anyone here would allow another to fall."

For a moment, Esser's melody sounds like her brother's. "I have nothing but faith in us. It is fate and time that I cannot trust."

"Have we ever been able to trust fate?"

"Maybe not," Esser says. "The Eternals, in some shape or form, have always fought against it."

Nio hums under her breath, a countermelody to the anxiety in Esser's heart. Her singing isn't as potent as playing a song on her harp, but she's cultivated it over the years to carry its own magic, a level above the mortal ability to find love and life in art outside of the burden of performance.

Esser continues to play with her hair, and even with the bright sunlight beating against both her eyes, Nio drifts off to the sound of her heartbeat.

She doesn't know how long she naps, her unconscious mind drifting with the Eternals' songs like wind chimes through the silence, but Esser's giggle wakes her up again. Rubbing at her face, she finds her hair in one long fishtail braid, her bangs back in her face.

"I didn't want to disturb you, but we need to stay awake for the mission," Esser says. "Could you fix my hair as well?"

"I'll do my best," Nio says, her hands hesitant, about to play a piece she'd never played before. They switch positions on the couch so she can undo Esser's braids, running her small fingers through her thick hair before taking the comb, careful not to tug. "But I still don't know how to do my own hair. I kept it in a ponytail all my life."

Esser's voice rings with hope, and Nio agrees with her words before she even says them. "When we get back, let's experiment."

* * *

In the past, Funf would seek him before her trials, torn between practicing her magic to assuage her stress and conserving it for their long battle ahead. Today, she turns to the others on this ship to occupy her time, leaving him free to meditate in peace before their battle.

He has always sought power for the journey itself, more rewarding than wherever his path would take him. For the first time since embarking on this path, he sees an end, and rightfully so should it be inextricable from the fabric of time itself.

Isolation is his beginning, middle, and end. But he has others among him who walk roads similar, enough that they join him of their own volition. Their youngest members, save for his daughter, are no longer children; they have created their own reasons to forge onwards, and as adults, they seek him for company as well as discussion.

At the end of a life's journey, he finds the will to move past it.

He has sharpened his personal blades and the symbolic one provided by Siete to perfection, and his armour is free of fault. His mind is sharp, but the clarity that this mission requires must be beyond mortal comprehension, and for this, he seeks to meditate.

Instead, he comes across a soul among them that seeks greater stability. Song hovers outside the common room of the ship, looking hesitant to join Nio and Esser, both of whom rest before the battle, their eyes closed.

Song's story is common among the Eternals, but she is more obvious about receiving despair from isolation, bound to others as her greatest strength and most unfortunate weakness. Although she has travelled far, she has a longer road to continue travelling. The spirit of connection is one that, now cultivated, has already elevated her to new heights.

He addresses her quietly enough that the other two don't wake. She doesn't stir, taking her time to look at him.

"Would you care to join me in the archive room for a game of chess?"

"Just me?"

"Chess is not a four player game, regardless of whether two of those potential players are sleeping."

She looks at him. Her anxiety is not the brightest thing in her eyes. More than the other Eternals, her guiding star has always been hope. "Sure," she says, following him in silence to the room beside the captain's quarters.

Papers are strewn everywhere, left behind on top of maps of Arawo—reports from its military, written mission debriefs, and their sizable pile of letters. After the captain's quarters, their archive room has the largest windows; when the training room is occupied and the deck is full of life, this is where he prefers to meditate. As he can expect with the Eternals, they have brought enough provisions and methods of entertainment should the time come when it is needed, despite this ship being temporary.

The chair creaks under his weight, and his hand is half the size of this small table alone. It is with gratefulness that he knows that as is with everything in their base, the items of this ship are built sturdier than they look. He prepares the chessboard as Song sits down in front of him.

He can sense her hesitation, but he wants for her to word the question rather than answering it for her before she can give it presence. He places the white pieces on her side, and when he sets the final black pawn, she asks, "Why me?"

Behind his painted face, he smiles to himself. "You seemed too preoccupied by thoughts to engage with the others, had they been awake at all. Perhaps you need a more stimulating activity to distract you from old patterns."

"All right, why not," she says, sighing. "We don't exactly hang out. Better late than never."

"This is an excellent mental exercise to pass the time. Both body and mind must be clear for our upcoming trials."

"Oh _no_ , that means you're good at chess." Song laughs as she makes her opening move.

Each of the Eternals have experienced isolation, whether by choice or imposed upon them, for gain or for loss. Song had been by choice as self-punishment. Where she first longed for company through the Eternals, approaching each of them with prospects of friendship, she then grew so far as to find love outside of people like her.

He found peace with his journey's end, should it be this mission. However, a resurgence of old habits can cause even the most concrete paths to crumble if worn away. In this time of strife, it is possible that she would return to thoughts she considered long-gone.

Song's experience with chess extends as far as its rules and the most basic moves. He corrects her only when a move is illegal, and she poses an unexpected challenge with her unpredictable thought process.

Regardless, the challenge doesn't last for long. Her decisions are erratic, but his understanding of both the game and Song herself trivializes his guesses of her moves, and he soon corners her.

Upon losing the game, Song says, "Huh."

She sets the board before he can compliment her tenacity, to his surprise. She moves first again by nudging a pawn forward.

"I guess I am a _little_ nervous," she mutters under her breath.

He says nothing, only taking turns. He senses that she will speak on her own in due time.

"I can't imagine what it was like for Six this past... month or so." She sighs, tilting her head and frowning as her eyes scan the remaining pieces on the board. "It's not his fault, obviously, but it was hard on all of us just to see him like that. I don't know what I'd do if the same thing happened again to any of you, but I wouldn't give up if it happened again, either."

"You may find peace of mind within that thought. Your friends—"

" _Our_ friends," Song interrupts, smiling up at him while moving her rook.

He pauses before booming into laughter. Unpredictability, indeed. "Our comrades are willing to make the same sacrifice you once made, but now with the confidence of the remaining Eternals supporting any great losses. That collective trust may instill tranquillity within you." He takes one of Song's pieces, and she pouts.

"But what sacrifice is that?"

"To relinquish our own humanity."

She moves her bishop into a trap.

"Each of us have already done so with the Revenant Weapons to gain a power that should remain buried. This time, as we willingly relinquish what defines our very act of living, we do so with the intention to secure it for countless others. We change the script such that although we may sacrifice parts of ourselves, enough of us persist that not a single one of our ten must bear a colossal burden."

He takes another one of her pieces, placing her in check.

"Simply put, you are not alone in your inevitable losses. However, you will not abandon others in equal part."

She frowns, looking at the board, and moves a piece in a manner he predicts. "I know that," she says, watching as he finishes the round with another victory. "I just can't help but worry about the ones we leave behind, worst case scenario."

"A person is made of their own memories and those of others. So as long as you leave something behind, your essence will still exist, whether it causes pain or celebration."

"Only two things in the world, the self and the other—is your way of distracting _everyone_ a lecture?"

"You are free to reciprocate!" He does not reset the board after this victory. "There is still much to learn from you through observation or conversation. The Eternals seem reticent to 'lecture' me in kind."

Song follows his lead, instead putting her chin in her hand to smile at him. Her hope shines as bright as ever, twin aspirations streaking through a forest grove. "As much as we're used to you, Okto, there's still _something_ a little scary about talking to you."

Okto feels a genuine smile underneath his painted face. "Looks can be deceiving," he says, resorting to clichés.

"If you'll forgive me, I'd have to say—not in this case."

* * *

At the helm, Siete keeps them steady. Piloting a ship filled with basically everyone he loves _should_ distract him from the anxiety of their task ahead. Autopilot _should_ be fine until they can see Arawo in the distance. But seeing the others as anxious as they are makes his own nervousness worse. There's never been enough time to do everything he wants to do; now, with the end near, his mind scrambles to remind him of all his regrets, from not mustering the courage to kiss Six before they left today to discovering he was lactose intolerant through repeated experience.

From time to time, his hand wanders to his chest, pressing the locket under his armour against his heart to feel the steady ticking of the clock. This necklace is a choking hazard. It's one extra loose accessory by which the enemy could trap him, rendering him useless. It's one more preventable part of him that could get destroyed in battle. Hell, with the Heaven's Mercy sheathed by his side, he's brought too much of his life with him to this potentially soul-crushing, life-ending battle.

But Six made this locket for him. Even if he last saw Six less than an hour ago before, it makes Siete miss him even more.

The door behind him bursts open, and he turns to see Sarasa with a grin splitting her face. "Here to visit li'l ol' me?" he chirps, moving his hand back to the wheel and wearing the smile he knows to curate out of habit.

"You _are_ old," she says as she stands by him, not at all responding to the correct part of his greeting. He looks over to her eyes filled with curiosity at the levers and buttons beneath her hands, but she has more restraint these days than smashing them blindly. She points to every small detail and questions what they do, and even as he explains, he can tell how much she wants to press and pull everything to watch the ship plummet with the faith that Siete has the skill to right them once more.

She runs over hypothetical scenarios of messing with the controls, but the first question that surprises him is, "Aren't you worried about what's gonna happen to us?" She asks it the second that Siete finishes explaining that no, it's unlikely that he could stop her from hijacking the ship if she set his hair on fire.

His eyebrows raise, and he tries to hide his surprise. "Are _you_?"

She frowns, looking past the wheel, the great blue sky reflecting in her eyes. The weather is perfect today, only clouds beneath them and none to conceal the sun. "I thought I was. It's kinda scary thinking about you guys dying, because, like... we shouldn't be dying, right? We're the Eternals!"

"We all have to die one day," Siete says. A joking tone curls around the edge of his words at the inevitable fact, but still, he adds, "We're eternal only in name, unless you all discovered the secret to immortality and just didn't share it with me."

Sarasa makes a face. "I _know_ we're gonna have to die some time. _Duh_. But I was thinkin'. If any of you guys go down in there, I'm goin' down with all you. Six already—died once," she stutters, as if she tried and failed to hold herself back from saying it in the first place, but the reminder doesn't sting Siete as much as it once did.

He knows that to a lesser extent the same thing is on her mind: if they were there, they could have stopped what happened to Six. But he also knows, like Sarasa does, that the other four there did everything in their power. "You're not alone in thinking that. We're all ready to fight for each other if that's what it takes."

"Yeah, exactly! Which is why I know none of us are gonna die! And if they take away all of you, I really got nothin' left. Even one of you getting taken away'll kill me!"

Siete laughs, but the frown he sees on her face is almost comical with how energetic her voice is. "Sarasa, never change. But don't make any stupid decisions."

"But that's who I am in the Eternals, isn't it? The one that makes stupid decisions?" She worries her bottom lip. "Siete, there isn't a lotta things I know how to do that aren't fightin' or huntin'. And you guys have taught me a lot. But if... If you nine wanna handle the thinkin' part while I..."

"Only if necessary, Sarasa." He takes his hands off the helm to grab her in a chokehold and noogie her, cackling in response to her squawk. Her horns hit a lever as she scrambles out of his grip, and the ship tilts; without removing his arm from around her neck, he scrambles to stabilize them. "We're still a team. We can still help each other out."

"It's been weird bein' a team," she mumbles, head hanging between her shoulders. "It kinda sucks to care about other people. But at the same time, it's made everythin' so much more fun."

"Exactly. So don't do anything that'll keep us apart for too long."

* * *

Six stands on the deck, and he doesn't look like he's about to explode with anxiety. He's probably the only one in the Eternals who isn't panicking right now. Funf wants to talk to him, but she doesn't know what she'd say. Since he died, she forgot how to have a conversation with him that isn't apologizing or accidentally making him feel bad, and now that they're on their way to maybe dying, _again_ , all she can think about doing is apologizing. _A_ _gain_.

She's gotta leave him alone. But everyone's busy, and she can't find anyone but Six, and she needs to talk to _someone_ even if he doesn't need to talk to her.

She's still too short to look over the ship's railings, but still, she's stubborn, so she runs up, stands next to him, and tugs on his pant leg. She's not a kid anymore, _and_ she's still the best, almost-perfect mage in the skies that… can't properly revive people from the dead unless she prepares a lot, but maybe she _kinda_ feels like a kid now. Kinda scared, maybe. But she's the Eternal that's supposed to help everyone feel better, so she shouldn't be feeling this way. She _can't_ be scared.

Six down at her, half of his mask on and eyebrows raised. She stays facing the wood out of spite after she looks at him to make sure he's looking. "Funf?"

"I can't see," she complains.

"What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Give me a piggyback ride."

Six looks worried. "If we hit any more turbulence, I may send you over the edge."

"I'll hold on tight. And _you'll_ hold on tight, too."

She doesn't know why he agrees, but he does, leaning down so she can hop on, the small double blades Siete made for her poking into Six's back. She really feels like a little kid again now, hands around Six's neck and looking out at the blue sky. The other Eternals used to give her piggyback rides all the time, but she could never get Six to do it until the past couple of years. He used to smile at her a lot more until the past month. She pats the top of his head between his ears. "Thanks, Six!"

"Don't fall. Keep your arms around me." He sighs, holding her arms in place with a hand. "You will always be the child of the Eternals, won't you?"

"I'm old now, shut up!" She pouts. "But..."

"Did you need something?" Even if Six doesn't remember that he started doing it, he encourages her to finish her sentence like Siete would, asking questions and never letting her stay too far in her own head.

"I... I'm sorry," she says.

She feels more than hears Six sigh. "Don't—"

"No, I know how to say sorry now. I keep just giving you half-apologies that suck, but this one's better. I've perfected it because I'm amazing."

"All of your apologies 'suck' regardless," Six says. "It was never your fault."

"Lemme finish before I say anything! I'm sorry for not being strong enough. You guys still see me as just a _kid_ to all of you, and maybe I am. But I'm doing my best, and I don't wanna fail you again."

Six's silence this time feels different. She cranes her neck to see a frown on his face. "Funf. You are strong. A man rediscovered decades of his journey for power by raising you as a sorceress of great skill. The Eternals have not threatened to remove you—"

"Or anyone else!"

"—and you continue to seek power in a way that only helps, rather than harms, others. The power with which you have been born, that power that you subsequently honed… It's a blessing, not only to yourself, but to the souls that inhabit the skies." He sounds like he's not really talking to her, but he is. There's no one else here. She realizes he's talking about _both_ of them.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, Six, I—"

"If you can learn from your mistakes and protect those you care about, then never apologize. The past is the past," he mutters, but now, she sees the half of his smile that isn't hiding under his mask. "I only happen to be closer to my own than I should be. It's more rewarding to know that you were nurtured where I was deprived."

"Then _you_ don't apologize either," she huffs. "Because if it's not my fault, then it's not _your_ _s_! We never let go of you. We still believe in you. So don't _ever_ be hard on yourself again, or I'll... I'll get Siete to smack some sense into you!"

She winces when she says _Siete_ , but she's surprised when Six chuckles and that same half-smile doesn't go away. "I'm sure you're strong enough to do that yourself by now."

"Yeah, just watch me! These fists are small, but I can do more than just swing my staff for damage!"

She watches the sky roll along, the clouds between Six's ears blowing in the wind, and she thinks things are gonna be okay for all of them.

* * *

Docked at Arawo's capital is the Grandcypher, and members that have fought beside the Eternals greet them. Quatre is surprised to recognize so many of them providing last-minute provisions and extra words of encouragement.

No, surprised isn't the right word. _Livid_ might be.

"What's everyone doing here?" Siete announces, but Quatre puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes past him to find the Captain of the Grandcypher at the centre of the group giving them directions.

"This isn't supposed to be a damn _spectacle_ ," Quatre seethes before Gran even sees him, focused on organizing his crew. "We told you we were coming so you could _evacuate_ people, not bring more here."

"We got as many of the citizens as we could out of Mayi and the surrounding cities," Gran says without looking at him, nodding instead at soldiers and crew members transporting rations. "But it's not easy to hide what you're all about to do, you know that? They wanted to stay and help. Either I try and stop them and they go behind my back, or I organize them so I can keep track of where everyone is and what they're doing—"

"Then control your damn crew better. If everything goes wrong in Mayi, we'll lose half of the best fighters in the skies because they're a fucking part of your crew that decided to stay on this island."

"Our pilot can and _has_ steered us out of the end of the world." Gran stands his ground, finally turning to face him. Underneath the fire blazing in his eyes, Quatre sees a flicker of uncertainty before he cages it behind lock and key once more to say, "If you're going into the blast zone—or hell, _cause_ it—then the least we can do is contain it from the outside."

"You should be in Stardust Town."

"I'll go. You know I'll go, Quatre." It was never an option for Gran to stay. He'll keep watch at Stardust Town until his return. It's the _one_ thing he asked of him. It doesn't stop Quatre from gritting his teeth as Gran keeps talking. "I'm going as soon as everyone here is ready for you to go in. The entire skydom knows by now what's going on here, no matter how much you guys tried to hide it. At least it made evacuating easier."

"That's not the point." Quatre snarls, taking a deep breath to keep from snapping further, something unfurling inside him with each second that Gran stands in front of him, defiant. "I asked you to do one thing—"

"And I will do it for you," Gran speaks over him, "once I confirm that you're safe." He enunciates every word, glaring at him, pushing into his space.

Quatre feels his jaw set, and he glares back. He doesn't know how they got so close. "You think we haven't prepared for this as much as we can, like we aren't hinging our entire lives on this one fucking mission? Like we don't know that _safe_ is a pipe dream for this bullshit?"

"I do."

"Then _leave._ " He balls his hands into fists, seeing red—and then he grabs his necklace and tugs until it breaks, tangling with the short hairs at the base of his neck. He throws the metal chain onto the ground, keeping the ring looped through it held in his right hand as he removes the glove off his left with his teeth. "Leave, because I'm not fucking dying. I'm coming back to Stardust Town." _To you,_ he doesn't say, putting the blood red ring on his left middle finger.

Gran does the same with the one around his own neck, in the same position for the same oath. "You have no choice. I'll be there—"

"Shut the fuck _up_ ," Quatre growls, grabbing him by the collar and mashing their lips together. Gran's lip catches on his fang and bleeds, but Quatre leaves him to wipe it himself as he storms away.

* * *

Song expected Silva to be here, but her entire extended family is beside her, and she's filled with equal parts concern and peace. Cucouroux and Camieux are no longer children, but she'll always see them as _little_ before she sees them as sisters, the same way she feels about Funf. Silva reassures her that her family will evacuate before they go to Mayi, but nothing she says can convince Silva, intent on keeping watch at the old capital, to return with them.

"My eyes aren't as good as yours," Silva says, "but I can still see what most can't."

Silva's family is Song's own. She can't hold back her tears as her childhood friends arrive on a separate ship, greeting everyone with the same enthusiasm, sharing their lives with each other and catching up as if the potential end of the world wasn't set to take place mere hours from now.

Memories are a powerful thing, she knows. Self-hate and dread once tainted her precious memories, but she's long since created new ones, repairing her skewed visions of the old moments she shared with others. She isolated herself because of the power she amassed, and without fail, the few she had in her life saved her. The Eternals pulled the Two-Crown Bow from her hands, launching her from the darkness into the shining light—and among the heavens, Silva met her there, bringing her entire family to become Song's.

Now, she uses her power to protect the skies that became her home. She looks at the people that have come to send her off, watching them talk among themselves between giving Song encouragement, and she knows without a doubt that she wants nothing more than to maintain a world of light to those who brought her from the void of darkness of her own making.

"This isn't fair," Silva says, sidling up next to her once their family has given them space. "This is a whole new level for me to meet you on."

"Please don't try," Song says. "We're doing this so no one else has to."

"You really grew into the Eternals, didn't you?" Silva holds her hand, leaning her head on Song's shoulder, a warmth that has long since seeped into Song's skin and become her own, even in solitude. "I know it's far beyond what we'd ever imagined, but don't go where I can't follow."

"You'll never leave me." She kisses her. "You've been by my side every time I've looked. And you still will be," she says, lifting her left hand to remind them of the silver ring. "You'll be in good hands. And I'll do everything in my power to make sure you'll be back in mine, soon enough."

* * *

Six stays at the dock, watching the Eternals say their goodbyes to loved ones, to old team members, to those that will remember them once they're gone. He doesn't expect anyone to approach him, but there are those among the Grandcypher that consider him good company, and they bring to him long histories of battles and more peaceful days of which he has no memory.

Vania and Azazel's energies overwhelm him as much as Lady Grey's well-meaning motherly advice does, and when they talk amongst themselves instead of with him, he excuses himself. They allow him; they give him a more muted version of the knowing look that the Eternals have toward his habits, and it doesn't make his skin crawl anymore to know that he let others see him for who he was.

Before he can leave, Orchid comes up to him and gives him a thumbs up. The action throws him off guard, although this isn't the first time she's shown done so to him. Not knowing what else to do, he pats her on the head. She looks up at him. "You've lost your memory."

"…I have," he says, lost with her childlike demeanour.

"But I'll remember you."

"There are kinder people to remember, Orchid." His posture relaxes.

"No one says my name like you do." She nods, and he doesn't know what to make of it. It's an obvious, logical statement—no one has Six's voice, therefore, no one would call her name as he would—but she refuses to elaborate. Instead, she hands him a small pouch of hard candies, swirls of bright colours and flowery designs. She nods again. "Eat these to give you strength."

Whether they have magic in them or are only placebos, he treats it the same. He keeps the bag in an inside pocket, separate from the rest of his rations. "Of course."

As if sensing his attempt to escape, she waves him off before rejoining with the Grandcypher's crew.

All of Arawo is in disarray, but there still exists a balance within the chaos. He overhears conversations of Mayi and its surrounding areas pending evacuation, military posted throughout the island except within Mayi itself. A smaller group from the Grandcypher will join them, and judging by the argument Gran has with Quatre, that much is non-negotiable. Evacuation among the entire archipelago is impossible, but the citizens on the main island have moved to the smaller islands around it.

He watches the Grandcypher and the Eternals, the people of Arawo mingled with the skyfarers, and then Phoebe comes to sit next to him, leaning on him without asking. He freezes, but she's light as a feather; this much hasn't changed, even though Funf is older than he remembers, even though Camieux and Cucouroux are taller than they should be. He can't doze off in a time like this, but she still stays by his side, and she doesn't offer to use her magic. "Not everyone here believes in your success," she says, and it sounds like it pains her to do so.

"Our job isn't to give up at the starting line," Six says. He parrots words that he doesn't remember hearing, ones said in Siete's voice that echo in his mind. Maybe he's putting to words what Siete's tried to show him all this time. Without meaning to, his eyes wander until he finds Siete, talking with the Guardian of the West-Southwest with small monkeys climbing over him, tugging at his necklace with curious fingers.

"Our job is to go to the ends of the skies for the things we love."

* * *

Anxiety should replace the blood in Six's veins and render him useless. But as he sits beneath the shade of a tree, watching the sun grow ever higher, hearing the others untie and retie loose ends with their loved ones, he feels nothing but calm. He's regarded their situation with not disinterest or detachment, but acceptance. After the nightmare that he wrought upon Siete nights ago, he'd returned to a sleep so peaceful that he could stay there for the rest of his life, and that tranquillity followed him to the living realm.

His body and heart are tied to Arawo's daybreak and moonlight, leaving his mind in the same disarray as the beast rumbling beneath the ground. He knows that whatever end he should meet, he would give his parts back to the condemned, to the revered, and to those left on earth, all at once. They are attached to him as he is to them. They are his ghosts seeking his form to possess, his friends seeking his peace of mind, Siete seeking his heart.

There was never any reason to worry. A part of him was always going to die today; he was always going to leave a part of him behind to follow into the abyss.

Siete escapes the final preparations between the Grandcypher crew and Arawo's remaining stations to sit with him under the shade. "Phew!" he exclaims, dropping onto the dirt beside him, cross-legged. Their knees knock together. "They really won't stop, huh?"

"I have no complaints."

"Yeah, of course. Better safe than sorry." Siete tosses a lopsided grin in his direction. Still, behind his eyes swirls a pain that Six has caused and can never mend, one that lessened with each day until they found themselves at the sky's edge.

Here, they cannot spare the time for pain. This must be why Siete closes his eyes with a long sigh before wearing a smile on his face again. "Hey, Six."

"Mm."

"What's the first thing you want to do when we come back?"

Six smiles at the question, and he's not sure why. Perhaps it's the blind optimism when Siete's optimism has never been blind, or perhaps it's how Siete looks away with a faint blush when he hears Six chuckle.

Journeys defined Six's life—the journey to divine retribution, the journey to find that man that he once considered his only hope. The Eternals were a journey to a lasting peace. The question makes him realize that not once has he seen a destination as clearly as he does now. "I've never considered it. Never has a journey's end been within my reach."

"For real? You thought you'd just be looking for something for the rest of your life without ever finding it, whatever it was?"

Six turns his head from the commotion to drink in the sight of Siete's questioning face, even though he must know the answer judging by the smile lifting the corner of his lips.

Siete should have given up on him long ago. He still doesn't know why Siete seeks his company, even now—but with the smile Siete sends his way, Six learns how, in a world like this, he could love and be loved in return.

For once, he is at the end of a journey. "I sought many things in my life," he says. His low murmur rumbles between them, feeling his own lips curl into a smile, one that Siete mirrors. He basks in the sun's warmth with Siete, content to close his eyes and rest. "However, I can be convinced that for the first time, I found something I was looking for."

With the wide blue skies as their witness, Six chases away all thoughts of past and future to lean down and kiss him, their lips connecting for the first time, for perhaps the last; Siete smiles against his lips, shaking his head with a laugh, and Six lifts a hand to wipe the tear from Siete's cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is so old that i was still using six with dark fist team  
> edit [may 3, 2020]: [more billie fanart](https://twitter.com/astrallevin/status/1256966944999256064)... *WHEEZES*


	8. months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [recommended listening!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MurcUS_SNU)

The sun rises to its peak, and the Eternals bid farewell to those that will not be stationed in Mayi; that group takes their airship and lands it in an open space outside of the border on the opposite side. With the old capital evacuated, the ten of them are the only living beings to wander the maze of streets to its outskirts. There is no keeper at the foot of the mountain. There are only final words of well-wishes from the people of the city rattling in the wind on wooden charms.

The stone crumbles underneath Six's feet with every step and rebuilds as they move onward, but he is the only Eternal that doesn't stumble on the one thousand steps to the sisters' temple. If he were to turn to face the sprawling maze of Mayi that they leave behind, he would witness the full history of this island in the mirages of weakening time. He would see this land born from galaxies and kept with life, civilizations rising and falling, nature reclaiming buildings and fires razing the earth.

He knows this, and so he doesn't look. There is no reason to.

His consistent pace puts him at the head of the group. Now more than ever, the disconnect between him and his companions becomes pronounced; memory loss still plagues him, but with how steady his heart beats and how little his body wavers as he takes each step forward, it's as if he lost nothing at all once he accepts his status as an observer to his own life. He helps the others as they stumble on capricious steps, and he thinks the peace he found with being planted outside the stream of time grants him a twisted protection.

Six is the first to reach the peak of the mountain, and he waits underneath the gate to support them.

"How did you not trip?" Funf whines, leaning on him to catch her breath.

"The stone under my feet never collapsed."

She sighs and waves a hand, mumbling something to heal everyone's scrapes from stumbling. "It's Hanan and Mayari's blessings, isn't it?"

Those two rest in perfect balance, but with each second that passes, their sister grows more discordant, and the bonds which connect her can only restrain her for so long. "Blessings are the dark side of a curse," he says, attaching no emotion to it. He has already accepted the outcome of this battle. "My memory for your guidance. Our sacrifice for the world."

Funf doesn't respond, but she hugs his leg. He pats her on the head.

There are still hours left in the day; neither Mayari nor Hanan have given information about Tala's domain other than images of darkness and the night, and so the Eternals aim for _as fast as possible_. Despite that, this temple atop the end of the skies holds a grandeur that captivates those that have yet to see the grounds. This may well be their final resting place, and the ten of them leave a piece of their souls in the meditation areas, beneath the surface of the small lake, the tree with the tangled branches.

When the sky lightens to call upon the dusk, a sense of urgency falls upon them. He leads their march into the temple, and he casts one last glance east before he enters.

This chamber is as decrepit as when they met with Mayari, and the late afternoon sun sets everything ablaze. Before Six moves past the space of worship into the space of forgotten gods, he reaches into the pocket of his uniform and leaves behind one of Orchid's candies as an offering, resting among the dust.

The statues watch them. This, he knows for sure. Each of the Eternals follow his lead, careful not to disturb them as they snake between Hanan's rising hands, Mayari's grasping fists, Tala's palms parallel to the ground. As the first two are now serene, Tala's face contorts with pain, her hands grasping onto a broken sacrificial blade. The small, stone room which the sisters' statues should occupy is still empty, and the setting sun once again illuminates the steps beneath them.

The torches upon the walls are already lit. Each step they take echoes in silence, none of them daring to shatter the timeless journey with their words.

As Hanan is gone from the forest, Mayari is gone from the sacrificial chamber, both returned to their rightful chariot and throne. The ten candles remain there, eight around the circumference and two on the altar itself, lit as they once were. Instead of glowing white like the new moon, they burn orange like the setting sun on which they turned their backs.

This is not a dead end. The light from each candle separates from its wick, arranging themselves against the opposite stone wall to crack it open as the break of dawn.

The glow of candlelight bleeds through. Their journey continues further behind the once impenetrable stone wall. As he had with Mayari's silent visions at the altar, Six lets his feet take him to the entrance, and the others follow.

It's a puzzle at first to fit through it, his uniform scraping against the walls, but at the right angle, it opens like it was waiting for him. On the other side is a corridor carved through the rock by mortal hands despite the very idea being impossible. There is no room for more than two of them to walk side by side.

He turns around to the others peering at him between the gap, the remaining beacons illuminating their curious faces. "It looks as safe as you'd expect," Six says. His voice, rusty with disuse, echoes against the cold stone.

Siete squeezes through after him with a ball of candlelight following behind his head. "I'm the leader, y'know. Leave some of the cool stuff for me."

"Then take more initiative." The teasing words tumble out of his mouth easier than breathing, and Six forgets how to feel embarrassed when he sees the genuine smile that blooms on Siete's lips.

The rest of the Eternals step through with an accompanying guiding light, filling the small space of the stone corridor with life. Quatre is the last to join them, and his light traces the crude entrance until the stone is seamless. He bangs on the wall, but only the dull thump of rock greets him, returning a sound so dense that there could never have been a room behind it.

"Looks like we're committing," Siete says.

Quatre turns to him, eyes narrowed and throwing a hand up in disbelief. "Fuck kinda statement is that? Isn't that the point?"

Their guardian lights illuminate them under a spotlight of scrutiny, emphasizing the bags under their eyes, the wrinkles of worry in their faces, the scars they've sustained across their bodies. Six stares at them as they settle in the narrow hallway; the sunset's glow casts their hope for the best, but here, beneath the earth, he can only see their expectations for the worst. Under these lights, Six looks to his hands caged in gloves that glow sickly pale. The ring is still there underneath the silk.

As if sensing his hesitation, the orb beside his head takes off, hovering down the corridor. The Eternals watch it pass by, the other lights joining to swim through the air without waiting for them to follow, like lanterns carried by a stream.

Uno frowns, looking to where they disappear. "No time like the present, although how present we are remains to be seen." He extends his elbow to the person beside him, and Song smiles at him before back to everyone else. "Shall we?"

"We shall," Song agrees, taking his elbow and leading them into the darkness.

Six ushers the Eternals ahead of him. He is their most stable member, and from the rear, he can discern whether time unravels as they travel further into this mountain without fear of being affected himself. He intends to walk alone, but Okto carries Funf against his back as she steadies her own breathing, and walking in pairs becomes natural. He doesn't shy away from Siete when he falls in step beside him to complete the rear guard of their ensemble.

Six has accepted his fate, but Siete might not be so ready. Dread cuts a path through his veins as he waits for Siete's final, desperate act, recalling the feel of their lips against each other as the first hints of regret flow through him. If he could, he would return the man Siete loved. Renewed doubt swirls in him at the realization that as prepared as he is to meet his end here, he would leave Siete behind, a man with too much love for Six to tear it away from him again.

He doesn't realize he's staring at Siete instead of where he's going until he steps on the back of Okto's boot. "Sorry," he mumbles.

"Now is the most acceptable time to be distracted," Okto says, his quiet voice a balm for his worries. Funf looks over her shoulder at them, jostled from her attempts to ground herself. "We have assembled for the final leg of this journey, but the road is not yet complete. If you are aware that your thoughts are misaligned, you can use it to centre yourself here before your mind can betray you in battle."

At a loss for words, Six nods in return.

Okto turns to face ahead once more, and Siete nudges Six in the arm. "You've been staring?" he asks before breaking out into a grin. "Can't resist the most handsome man in the skies? Feeling an _end-of-the-world_ sort of attraction?"

The blatant joke signals that he's trying to break the tension, whether among the group, or between the two of them, or even that of Six's own mind. He opens his mouth to protest, but before he can, Quatre's voice echoes from the front. "If you two are gonna flirt, can you keep it down?"

"Quatre," Siete says, turning his attention away from Six with a smirk. "What's it like to be the little brother to the most handsome man in the skies—"

"I'll tear you apart before we even get to Tala, don't test me." Quatre answers without hesitation, his following sigh too curt to relieve the pressure of retaining normalcy.

Sarasa snorts. "Cool, we got a sacrifice," she says, lacing her hands behind her head and almost elbowing Esser in the head by doing so. Only Esser's foresight to keep a wide berth to avoid her horns in this narrow passage spares her. "So we see Tala, and she does all the weird stuff I guess, and then we remember Siete's weird flirting and make him fight her alone. Boom! We're home free!"

"We came this far, _together_ ," Siete whines, but the grin is obvious in his voice. "Besides, what makes you think you'd remember all the weird things I'm about to say to Six? You're right, I can say anything right now and Tala's just gonna make us forget."

"Her mercy would not strike soon enough," Six mutters, "if you chose to whisper filth in my ear."

"So that's a yes." Siete turns his grin to their audience as he leans in close to Six. His lips brushing against the shell of his ear is more of a comfort in its familiarity than Six anticipated. "Mud. Just a big mud puddle. Enormous."

Six makes a face. "What?"

"All of it's dirty. Filthy."

Uno's chuckle bubbles from the front of the group. "As with the kitchen when you experiment with a new recipe with unexpected outcomes."

"Low blow." Siete pulls away from his ear, and it twitches with the missing warmth. (He hopes Siete doesn't notice.)

Song's voice sounds even lighter, hard for Six's ears to discern. "You know we'd never leave you, Siete, _tempting_ as it is after that awful display."

"The only person on my side in this entire, cold, hard world." Siete traces the stone wall with his gloved fingers, heaving out a sigh and clutching his chest before pretending to wipe a tear from his eyes. When Six gives him a questioning look, Siete sighs again, this time leaning in to blow the air against the shell of his ear.

Six nudges him out of the way, moving a hand up to his mouth to hide the smile that appears on his lips. Even now, Siete distracts him from his worries as if it were second nature. Judging by how Siete walks closer to him, looking at him more often, he knows it must have been deliberate.

Conversation flows easier from there, their bodies carrying them forward while they keep each other company. But the longer their small talk goes on, the more obvious Six's position as an outsider from the stream of time becomes. The space between their easy responses grows larger, and the Eternals will go seconds, then minutes at a time without responding, before picking up the thread of conversation as if nothing happened.

Six may be more accurate in discerning time compared to the other nine, but he realizes with a jolt that he can't tell how long they've been walking. It should be impossible for this path to travel this far down underground without opening up beneath the island and dropping them into the Crimson Horizon, but with no concept of which way they've come from and which way they're going, he has no choice but to withhold observation and continue forward.

This is the first time he considers what _eternity_ would look like. He knew from birth that his afterlife would consist only of torture, and he wonders whether it would be _this_ , forced to watch his companions trapped in its whims. Within this eternity, he no longer remembers whether he's alive or if he's already passed away in the face of Tala's power. If he is dead, then it was nothing like his first passage to the afterlife, contorting him with physical pain beyond measure. If he is dead, then he knows with certainty that he has received no messages, no memories lost by which he can define himself.

He's been here for so long that he forgets any of his names—but outside of himself, there _is_ one he can't forget, even if he tried. From time to time, Siete's hand will brush against his. He knows it's unintentional, but with each point of contact, the desire to hold, to find a physical anchor and prove that he isn't so out of reach consumes him like this darkness.

He finds that warmth lingering when he wraps his hand around the hilt of the sword still hanging off his hips, Siete's gift to him and to each of the Eternals. In the insurmountable, undefinable nothingness, Siete glances over to him and smiles. He puts his own hand over Six's and squeezes for just a second, in a place where a second lasts an eternity.

* * *

At the front of the group, Uno pauses.

Unlike the disconnected conversations from earlier, the action resides in the physical world; the others stop beside him the instant he does. "The ground is uneven." His voice scratches and tears as it comes out his throat. Six can't tell if it's been hours, days, _weeks_ since any of them last spoke.

"There's a wind. And the walls are bigger." Sarasa's hand flies to the axe strapped against her back, but she waits. She no longer charges into battle without ensuring that her team can support her as she does for them.

Okto lets Funf off his back, and she looks around. "The shadow is thicker ahead. We're almost there."

Beside Six, Siete coughs. It's unassuming at first—and then he coughs again so obnoxiously that everyone has to look at him. Six doesn't check whether he needs assistance, because from this close, he can see the smile he's trying to hide. "Well, now that I have your attention," he says, extending his arms. "Whaddaya say we do one last group hug?"

"After you… coughed on your hands?" Esser's nose scrunches with concern.

"Okay, good point," he mutters, wiping his hands on his pants. When he extends his arms again, the strain in his grin is more obvious.

Six could never resist falling into his orbit. Siete's gravitational pull has always been too strong, a star shining too bright for the night sky that holds it. Before Six can regret his decision, he throws his right arm around Siete's waist, not protesting when Siete slings his left arm around his shoulders. Funf runs beside Six and leaps into the air, floating up to hang her own right arm around Six's neck, and one by one they join the group until Okto pats Siete on the back, forcing another cough.

"This apprehension does not befit you as leader." His following laughter is lighter than his usual, earth-shattering timbre, and Six glances over to see a rare smile on his face.

Siete's impromptu coughing fit ends. "I'm trying to be cool, I promise. But it's hard not to be a _little_ emotional, because from this point on… We move as one whole."

He takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes. When he opens them again, they burn with a flame so bright that it drowns out the candlelight surrounding them. Six remembers again why he denied loving Siete for so long. If he were ever too close, he would smolder from the inside out until this love consumed him, starting with the heart beating in his chest, until he would be nothing but ash.

(Nothing but Six, in parts and never to be whole again.)

"Whatever we have to do in there"—he cocks his head toward the entrance—"won't work if we argue, or if we have anything to say to each other. So speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Six's breath catches, snaking back down his throat to sink in his gut—not at Siete's intentional wording, but at his continued lack of memory. But before he can mull over Siete's words, Song nudges Sarasa and looks her in the eye, frowning at her.

"Sarasa."

"Whoa, _you_ got a problem with _me_?" Sarasa brightens, cackling. "Okay, do your worst!"

"Yes, I have a problem of most grave proportions." She's silent for a moment before huffing with a pout. "Your fashion sense is still _horrendous_. Time and time again, we take you out to dress up all nice, and then you just rip the sleeves off. And for what?"

"To show off these guns!" Sarasa exclaims with a cackle on the tail end of it, flexing her arms from where they rest around Song and Quatre's hips. "Okay, wait, my turn! You!" She points with her chin toward Okto; his eyes light with expectation as she continues. "You said I'd understand you better when I got older! But you only got _more_ confusing! What's up with that?"

"That is not a failing of my speech. Your comprehension may not have sharpened with time, or it is possible your hearing has deteriorated."

From beside Sarasa, Quatre moves his hand to tug at her pointy ear, and she scoffs. "I understand people better, old man, don't be like that to me!"

"You would be correct. However, the flame of your spirit has become an inferno that no enemy can match. We will rely on your energy rather than your hearing for our battle."

"We're supposed to be airing grievances," Siete nudges, "not… Creating more…? Or encouraging each other? I already lost track of what's happening."

"Thank you for returning us to the original topic," Uno says, but the glint in his eye is full of a mischief borne of familiarity. "Siete."

"Uno."

"You could stand to throw out old shirts with holes in them. The base looks messier when you present yourself as though you take no pride in your appearance."

"Okay, never mind, ouch. Who needs a final showdown with an out-of-control primal beast of goddamn _time_ with friends like these?" Siete grins. "Well, I hate how you float on your little standy thing without ever _once_ offering us to go on a ride. It looks fun as hell, man."

Funf sticks out her tongue, and with a smug cackle, she pipes in with, "You never asked!"

"I did!"

Uno laughs. "He did. I never allowed him."

Esser giggles, and then she removes her hand from Nio's waist to cover her mouth. Her ears twitch and the guiding lights by her ears dart away as laughter overcomes her. "Uno allowed the Stardust Town children as well," she says, struggling to get the words out. Her open mirth is still so rare that everyone smiles at the sound. "But Quatre couldn't keep his balance—"

Quatre is grinning so wide that his eyes are almost closed, his cheek dimpling. "Sis, I hate how you tell everyone personal things about me. They don't need to know that."

"But your footing was wrong, and—" Esser's explanation devolves into giggles as she removes her other hand from Uno's shoulders and covers her mouth. She crouches down to try and contain herself. "I'm sorry," she says with tears springing to the corner of her eyes, her smile too wide for her apology to be sincere.

"Well then." Siete himself is not immune to the contagious laughter, his words shaking with the effort to remain serious and failing. "That was absolutely useless. We accomplished nothing."

Nio smiles when Esser's ears brush against her, still crouching on the ground. She leans away and turns her bright eyes to Siete. "You could have asked me. Everyone is perfectly in tune for this performance of ours, with the knowledge that our conductor will lead us into the concert we'll play for the rest of our lives with his head held high."

 _However short th_ _e rest of our lives_ _may be_ is the unspoken understanding, but her optimism and reminder strikes a chord within them to uplift their spirits instead. Under the guiding lights, Six scans their faces, no longer weighed down with death, but ready to live the fullness of their spirits.

Siete's hand shifts against Six's back with a sigh.

Nio tilts her head. "Six, are you all right?"

Before anything else comes to mind, Six breathes out, with warmth spreading through his body, "Thank you." He opens his mouth to continue, but he has nothing left to say. Through his life, he has always felt the urge to explain himself, to ramble, but he needs no other words now.

Siete moves a hand to wipe Six's cheek, and it's only then that he realizes he's shed a tear.

Funf hugs him, removing her arm from Quatre. "Don't be silly. We're here for each other!"

"I know." For Six, that knowledge resonates stronger in his heart than ever before.

"Well," Siete says, "with our grievances out of the way, I've got one more—Six, _stop_ stealing my lines."

"Six, ignore him." Song winks. "Your delivery's so much better. Siete's not dramatic enough. He just doesn't understand the gravitas."

"Everything sounds better when Six says it," Siete volleys back, and Quatre groans, rolling his eyes.

"Here he goes again," he mutters, shaking his head and looking away, but he can't hide his fanged grin from everyone when they're this close. "Everyone, cover your ears, he'll be on his _I-love-Six_ rant forever."

Esser pulls her ears over her eyes. Funf looks over and starts giggling, and laughter ripples out again like waves. Around Six's waist, Siete's hand grips tighter.

"Seriously, let me speak," Siete whines, but he waits for his own laughter to die down before starting again. "I know, I know, we don't want this time to end. But before we do whatever we have to do, I wanna say—Thank you. And thanks especially to _Six_ for taking this moment from me."

Six lowers his head, but it's not enough to hide his smile.

"The Eternals didn't have the easiest start since we're all kinda neurotic, aren't we?" Siete grins. "But if anyone ever told me I'd picked the wrong people for the Eternals, I'd smack them upside the head. There isn't a group of people I'd rather have be my crew than you guys. If ever you thought you were replaceable—remove that thought from your mind. Just this once, I'll allow memory loss for something like that.

"There isn't—"

Siete chokes up, masking it behind a cough. Okto's hand rests on his shoulder at the same time Six holds him tighter. "Each of you brought something amazing to my life. I can only hope you think the same thing about your friends here.

"Coming up is the greatest trial we've ever had to face. Maybe Tala's watching us right now, like we'll look up and she's just hanging up on the ceiling like, 'cute speech, Siete'!" He pauses, gathering his thoughts, and the next time he speaks, all pretense of joking, the last fragments of his nervousness disappear.

"But we're sharing this trial, and that's what'll keep us going. There is no turning back. But whatever happens in there, know that we'll be together until the bitter end."

The tears that well in Siete's eyes only makes their sky blue glitter, his smile even more radiant. He holds expectations for the Eternals because he trusts that they'll meet it, again and again, and Six wants to rise to those expectations until he can land among the stars with the nine others.

Siete puts his hand in the middle of their circle, and each of the Eternals follows suit. Six is the last to do so, and the ring on his finger under his glove absorbs everyone's warmth for his skin.

The circle is silent, waiting for Siete to continue, and then he mutters, "Wait, no, I messed up. I don't have a chant for us. Take your hands out so I can think."

No one moves. "We could… go around the circle and say our names?" Song tries.

Sarasa makes a drawn-out sound of consideration before blowing a raspberry. "That's lame."

"You have any better ideas?" Quatre deadpans, having no expectation for Sarasa's creativity.

"Oh, oh! We could sing a song!" Funf bounces up and down, her grin widening as she looks around the circle, and Six puts up his hand not inside the circle to stop her.

"That may be in line with one of the worst ideas the Eternals ever has to offer."

"Not true!" Siete sings the two syllables with dramatic falsetto, holding the note for several seconds. Six nudges him with his foot. "My singing voice is great."

"A battle cry may suffice." Okto's voice rumbles with rare anticipation, his eyes sharpening as with the advent of a battle.

"Not if we value our hearing as an asset for our upcoming fight." Nio's amusement softens the frown that Six was afraid would be permanent.

"Something simple that'll lift our spirits up, then. We've never been one for parting words that weren't for enemies." Esser's smile is infallible, brightening her quiet demeanour.

"I don't think we need one." Uno smiles. "Siete gave us an acceptable speech."

"Shucks, you'll really make me cry again. Just _acceptable_? Tala, girl, if you're up there in the rafters just watching, boost my ego please." Fondness tempers Siete's voice. "Okay, no more delays, no more silly stuff. We have the fabric of time to repair."

"See? There's a good chant," Song says.

Quatre makes a noise. "Nah. Too wordy."

Their circle separates as they turn to the widening passage behind them, but they remain close enough to be within arms reach of at least one other. Six feels the breeze Sarasa mentioned now that he's seeking it, pausing his advance to glean more information. The only sounds are their breathing and air whistling from the entrance.

Something is strange about this wind. He removes the glove from his left hand and holds the back of his hand in front of his mouth, blowing onto it. Air can still move within this space, and it only convinces him that this breeze is not so; when he realizes it, the sensation turns into water lapping at his feet.

Funf watches him, and realization dawns on her face as she does the same to her own hand. "That's not a wind," she says. "That's _magic_. That's the stream of time."

"Let's not waste more of it," Uno says.

As on cue, their lights drift away from their watchpoint over the Eternals' heads. Their only choice is to follow through this stone path not carved by their own hands, but one they must finish themselves.

The darkness within the passage becomes less oppressive with a final destination in their grasp, each of them picking up their pace until they're running to catch up with the lazy, hovering lights. In an instant, the corridor opens wide into a round, circular cavern, much like the sacrificial chamber that held Mayari. It might have once been beautiful in a way only nature could shape, but jagged stalactites litter the ground, edges sharp from indiscriminate destruction. The ceiling has fallen to ruin, and looking up, Six sees only blackness stretching for miles above their stage.

The only light in this cavern seeps in through a small circular opening no larger than his head, a rose window as witness within the church of their final sacrifice. A single ray of sunlight lays at their feet, and Six doesn't know if the sun is setting or rising.

In the perfect centre of this hallowed cavern, from the ceiling to the ground and from the entrance to the other wall, hangs Tala. Her sisters retained humanoid forms, but she is little more than a dark cocoon with glittering gold pinpricks like misplaced starlight. The Eternals' guiding lights from Mayari's chamber return to her, and a part of Six's soul disappears with it; he looks around at the others to find similar gutted expressions on their faces, and he wonders what they've lost.

He knows this feeling too well, the knowledge that loss has befallen him once again without knowing what disappeared. Tala has already taken something from them that they cannot remember, but he's experienced this—and so, he steps forward. With a breath out, he unlatches the claws from his belt and slots his fingers into the haunting silver, the ring on his left finger singing with the gauntlet around it.

The others stand beside him, inching into their final resting place. They watch as each of their lights morph into gold, resting to adorn her tangled hair. In each one, he sees flashes of their life, an acute sensation, a sudden word.

Six's eyes follow the string of starlight, unravelling the story of her and her sisters. She hangs in the core of night and day, the first to arrive when the sun sets, the last to disappear when it rises once more. She has persisted through war and destruction, peace and prosperity, and she fought endlessly to maintain each one in equal balance; she is the last of her sisters to fall, and she will be the first to become unbalanced again.

The form beneath the cocoon shifts as the points of light fade away, absorbing into her cage. Beneath her binds, the night glows. As with Mayari's eye, bright as the full moon, Tala's burst open, bright as the first star of the night.

Her eyes search the ten of them—and then, she cries out with a voice so ancient that it shakes the earth beneath the clouds, resonating with the horrors of the Crimson Horizon to whittle away at their remaining sanity.


	9. years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [recommended listening!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gDv-jaUUGw)

The Eternals never stood a chance.

Tala cries as her sisters have: not intending to harm, but because she can do nothing else to relieve the pain of her binds. From the moment they passed Mayari's chamber, the guiding lights were feeding on their spirits and weakening them, and they didn't realize until battle began. Their absorption is as amoral as Tala's cries, their energy only for survival. They must feel neither remorse nor joy from the Eternals' diminished state as they returned to Tala herself.

The glittering gold of everyone's past spirals outwards from Tala's cocoon, appearing as lances familiar to Six from a death he remembers but hasn't experienced. She launches a barrage against them, returning what they lost as their price to pay. One second more and Uno's defense would have been too late—but here, _now_ , one second means nothing. Six cannot invoke the Gate of Demons, a part of his past he once considered inextricable; Nio's shield decays at a rapid pace, forcing them to take more damage than should be possible; Funf is already struggling to heal them. Before they're cognisant of how they've gathered, Tala centres in front of them, and the only thing they can do to stay alive is to retreat behind the fallen stalactites before she next cries out.

Her roars of anguish disorient their sensibilities until they can't see their own hands before their eyes. They still cannot prevent the effects of time distortion. Hanan gave them no information about their wayward powers, and Mayari did not fight. Their only guard is to keep each other close, maintaining physical contact when possible, verbalizing everything to keep anchored in a rotting present.

The grief in Tala's howls are scores more potent than Hanan's. Her time manipulation is messy, uncontrolled, unpredictable, everything that her sister's wasn't. Every time Six regains his bearings, he sees images of the millennia of her existence, the past centuries where she and her sisters could only accept their fate ensnaring them until they could only wail as sirens for mortals to find them.

Tala deals losses against them greater than any mortal should ever bear, and the hollowness that resides in Six's chest, his body, grows with each time she begs, knowing she is close to freedom but cannot assist in receiving it.

They have less time to recover between each attack. There are stretches of time he doesn't remember, both in the battle and in his own life before this. One second, Nio is next to him, her fingers bleeding onto the strings of her harp, fighting through the pain to play. (Tala cries out.) The other, Okto is beside him, drawing his third blade to deflect what he can of her spears like sharp points hung in the night sky, and when there is a lull in her physical attacks, (she cries out.) Esser is reloading her bullets with a gash in her leg that only magic can cause and only magic can repair.

They would never have enough time to prepare. They could recover from physical attacks and even psychological damage, but when time becomes their enemy, there is no outcome but loss.

Though—they always had one plan, he thinks, as he watches Sarasa bait Tala's physical attacks so Funf can muster her healing spells once again, and it was—

If necessary… _Siete says to him at the bar, and underneath his mask, he scowls. Siete brought him here to talk about a mission,_ _arrived late,_ _and_ _informed him_ _he'd have to fight innocents_ _to reach the perpetrator_ _?_

 _Of course_ Six _had to do this_ _. He see_ _s_ _now, beneath the joking veneer_ _,_ _that_ _Siete is nothing but serious_ _about his request_ _. He has suspicions about the organizer of this melee tournament_ _at Albion_ _, and as Six was the one among the Eternals best suited for hand-to-hand combat, it was obvious why Siete sought him._

 _Six never stops hating the unspoken necessities of engaging as vigilante peacekeepers. If necessary, kill. Defuse. Eradicate._ Understood, _he says, and the syllables curl sick in his stomach_ _as Siete looks at him with relief_ _._

_If necessary, sacrifice yourself._ That was the unspoken agreement of their mission, even if the gravity of time warped and made it so they could not lift their feet to take one step. Get as close as possible to Tala and free her from her bonds.

His head is bent at an awkward angle against the wall of the cavern. An ache spreads throughout his entire body, leaving no cell of his untouched. The scars against his arms from freeing Hanan peel open, scorching as hot as the sun's surface. The claws of a beast uncontrollable marked him and his comrades, and if he looked over at Quatre, at Uno, at Funf, at Nio—if he scraped his face against the ground to turn to any one of them, he would see their scars bleed as his do to wet the dirt.

A sudden thought stings his mind, like the soil grinding in those scars, as he pulls himself up: the shockwave from all of her bonds freeing at once would tear this cavern apart. The foundation of this island would fall to dust. They would fall with it.

When Six regains consciousness, he's struck with the same thought he had when he first died to Hanan: _At what point did I lose it?_ Collapsed on the ground, he staggers back to his feet and turns to see the other nine unmoving, bodies settled with the dust.

Where is he? He scans his surroundings, this dark stone cavern. A single ray of sunlight mars the hallowed cave, and it does so with a scathing eye, searing a space halfway between an entrance and an enemy.

 _Right—Tala_ , he thinks to himself. He doesn't want to look back to see if the others have stirred. He knows what his duty is. If he stopped to confirm that they were alive, he would only impede his own progress. Make their sacrifice useless. He readies his claws, and then from behind him, he hears the faint plucking of a harp's strings. They're not dead. Not yet.

_The street lamp illuminates Siete's shock. A darker part of Six is satisfied seeing him finally so off-kilter, while everything else pleads that Siete shouldn't be shattered so easily. "So," Siete starts, and his small smile is trickling its way back home on his lips. It's tinged with sadness, but not pity, and Six balks at the thought that he's been watching Siete for long enough that he can tell the difference._

_The difference isn't difficult. Not once has Siete exacted pity on anyone._

_"You enjoyed today?"_

_Six stares at him in complete disbelief, his thoughts halting. Siete sweeping him off his feet goes like this: Six clenches his fists, and then he spits out his answer with as much vitriol as he can muster against himself for falling, over and over and over—_

When Six regains consciousness, he's struck with the same thought he had when he first died to Hanan: _At what point did I lose it?_

His head is bent at an awkward angle against a fallen stalactite. An ache spreads throughout his entire body, leaving no cell of his untouched. The dust from an attack disappears into nightsmoke, and it filters into his lungs like stardust to remind him to breathe. Uno's shield decays at a rapid pace while the Eternals scramble to regenerate, regroup—but the conversation they're having is incomprehensible, each one responding at different points of the same discussion.

Watching them as he sits up, his head hanging down with the weight of the world, Six takes their fragments of conversation in his mind and rearranges them to make sense. Siete plans another attempt to damage the outermost layers of Tala's bonds. Uno maintains his defense for the others to bear the physical attacks. Tala cries out.

Six invokes his Gate of Demons, but he finds that he can't, having done so already. His fingers twitch in his gauntlets of moonlight silver, nails scratching against the metal, but he must have tried already. He must have opened his Gate of Demons. He must have tried. He must have succeeded, or he must have failed—how long have they been fighting? When was his last attempt? How long have they been fighting?

When Six regains consciousness—he's beginning to feel as though he has already lived this moment.

Despite what the logic he has derived from previous attacks has dictated should happen, he's losing less and less of himself with each plea Tala makes. The stormy seas amidst her waves of uncoordinated time are starting to resonate within the void inside him that Hanan took for herself; her erratic movements find a rhythm within the heart Mayari returned to him. He still cannot remember his life, but he remembers this battle, the only thing for which he can and should exist.

In contrast, the Eternals lose more of themselves, both their sense in battle and their sense of self. Song requests that he launch her in the air with all his strength, and he has no reason to refuse. She hovers, arrows nocked and bow drawn, but without the protection of Funf's healing and Uno's shield, Tala's cry knocks her over. She hurtles toward the ground like a meteorite entering the atmosphere, burning until there is nothing left of her.

Six is there to catch her, and she looks at him and says, _Why haven't you thrown me in the air yet? I want to see if my arrows can do anything._

 _I have,_ he mutters more to himself than to her, supporting her on unsteady ground. The cavern around them shakes as Tala prepares to roar once more, and the fear that flashes in Song's eyes doesn't reflect in his own. He knows he is not reflecting her fear, because he is too far outside of the other nine. _You fell from the air_ _when you tried_ _._

In all his years of being an Eternal, Sarasa has never once stayed down. If Okto commanded the earth to his bidding, Sarasa could split it as one could seas with staves and use the broken shards to her own will, even as her hands bled out onto the soil, red as her eyes of blazing fire.

Six cannot recognize her when she allows herself to collapse on the scorched earth, dust settling around her without her chaos to disturb it. She would never dare to appear so weak.

She swings her axe once more to level the earth, but it instead brings her back to her knees. Funf envelops her in her magic torrent with one last cry and her eyes shut tight, moments before the cavern's rumbling sends more stone born of the deep mountain against her.

Six watches. Wasn't Sarasa in perfect condition? Wasn't she dodging and countering with a conscientiousness that he knows and doesn't know of her?

What does he know for sure, anymore?

How long have they been there?

Their uniforms are in tatters, but their wounds heal moments later—by reversal, by accelerated recovery—as if Tala can sense that her desperation is harming them. Her time is the disease and the cure _._

When Tala growls beneath her bonds, something compels him to look for Siete. Nothing in this space is so sacred that it is free from the tragedy of loss, but this remains: knowing where Siete is, even when he cannot find himself.

Siete's gloves have long since worn away, his palms bleeding around the hilt of his sword. Blood stains the golden band on his finger, glittering under the single ray of light beneath a rose window in a church they never united in. The locket is no longer hidden under his armour. Cloying blood and impenetrable dirt sullies the pendant, jammed open. Still, from this distance, he can see its second hand moving, the glass intact. Does anything he create by his own hands remain intact?

Can he create, when all he can do is destroy?

At his side, still in its scabbard, is a weight unfamiliar to his movements. (Whose side? His? Who is _he_?) Siete's sword, deep as obsidian, hangs by his hips. He (who _is_ he?) knows that if he were to remove it from its scabbard that would reflect the dim light here as the day Siete first showed him. Is it because Siete created it for his hands?

Uno's defense manifests a second too late, but how long a second lasts down here is impossible to discern. All the Eternals fall except for him ( _who is he_ ), and this time, he can remember the way they looked, strewn across the ground some time ago. Corpses but with enduring soul, never allowed to die. Louder than the chaos in this cavern room is the sickening sound of bone breaking, and he looks to Siete, stark white jutting out from his leg through his uniform.

Siete's Mercy clatters from his hands, still bright.

Funf heals his leg as best as she can, but the unpredictable time saps her magical stores. Six (that's who he is, right? Does he have any other names?) can't stop staring at the man he once loved, the one he does now, the one he did long before this second. Maybe from the _moment_ they first met—he tries to remember what that moment was, and even that is lost to him.

The longer he observes, the more obvious Six's position as an outsider from the stream of time becomes.

His memory loss is not a disadvantage for this battle. Five and a half years is a substantial amount of time, but with the Eternals at the mercy of Tala's uncontrollable despair, the only one who remains without body, soul, and mind gutted is Six. Their disadvantage is the same, and yet not—has his memory returned, or has everyone's regressed further than his?

There are things that even the most ancient of beasts cannot take away from them. Their movements in battle are honed as they always have been, instructions etched on every fibre of their muscles. Like Six, when they don't have time to think, old habits rise. Their instincts are centuries ahead of where their minds are. As Tala's binds have not loosened, their own bond as _the Eternals_ persists, as if each other's weaknesses were their own.

But with their concepts of themselves and of each other so inconsistent, who can say that they still exist? Memories define all that they are and all that they aren't; they may exist outside of this hallowed, crumbling church, but to each other, they are fading away.

At the crossroads stands Six, the watershed of their history, merging with the river of time that threatens to drown them all.

This is the worst time for him to ruminate, but as the only one that remains consistent, it might be his last duty to remember everything that he can. Perhaps he was born to be a vessel. He wanted nothing more but to abandon the knowledge he gained from Karm, but it became sewn into his being as something he could never relinquish instead, something he had to make his own to continue living with this body. His loss from Hanan left behind a space that he filled with the Eternals, keeping each of them as part of himself.

He may be less affected by Tala's time magic, but he is not immune. The longer he tries to solidify his fleeting memories of the Eternals, the longer they slip between the cracks of his coherent thoughts, bleeding into the open air.

 _Nio playing a traveller's tune on a long airship ride home from a mission, her head resting on Six's shoulder. Sparring with Okto the night before his_ _own_ _wedding, clearing his mind_ _to settle his_ _anxiety_ _. Sitting atop a mountain with Song after the Two-Crown Bow had taken her, making promises he didn't realize were promises, keeping promises he didn't_ _know_ _he'd made. Helping Esser plant new trees around Stardust Town, keeping the kids entertained with an impromptu spar against Quatre._ _Sarasa_ _dragg_ _ing_ _him_ _without rest_ _to the swathes of forest outside their base_ _,_ _saying that if Siete did this all the time with her, so could he_ _. Siding with Uno_ _and hi_ _s_ _thinly_ _veiled attempts to get the base a_ _nother_ _pet to keep Terra company_ _, despite the_ _likely size disparity_ _._ _Funf_ _looking up at (Siete) with glee in her eyes as he_ _picks her up and spins her in a circle to the music, (Six) a blur of white and purple at the edge of his vision_ _._

That last memory isn't his.

_He and Siete, on a mountain atop Silverwind Stretch._

He sees himself in these memories. He can't find Siete. These memories aren't his.

_He and Siete in the pouring rain, (Siete's) lip curling in disgust at mafia goons_ _threaten_ _ing_ _a child_ _. He and Siete, dinner in Albion after the tournament,_ _the_ _mask_ _of his disguise_ _covering his face. He and Siete in a labyrinth underneath the streets of Golonzo, the night breeze caressing the chime hanging in the window. He and Siete, in the kitchen preparing for_ _Funf_ _'s birthday, with no moon and no sun, only a single guiding star_ _in the dawn sky to blink at them_ _._

These memories are his as much as they are Siete's.

 _He and Siete._ _Oh, god,_ Siete. _Siete, Oh, god,_ he thinks.

In the final moments before Six breaks himself apart from what unsteady whole he had become, he regains himself through someone else's eyes.

_He and Siete—_

Healing courses through his veins, sapping away the exhaustion and replacing it with clarity. It anchors him in the present for mere moments, and with the reserves of his energy, he looks at the other nine instead of at Tala.

Corpses but with enduring soul. They look not at Six, but behind him to the beast. It was wrong of him to assume that nothing here was consistent. Their determination hasn't left their eyes once. That remains separate from time.

The Eternals have always been full of resolve.

Uno heaves with exertion after summoning his defenses against her spears, and when the rumbling signals her cry, he watches their fear and desperation melding to become unwavering determination once more.

Tala deals losses against them greater than any mortal should ever bear, but they are eternal in spirit, raising their heads and lifting their weary bodies until flesh should fall off bone. And through the action, a miracle begins to take root.

The antiquity of her time must impart a lasting impression on each of them, because they learn routine.

_Why didn't you lay yourself at my feet and allow me to kill you, if you believe in divine retribution so much?_

When Six regains consciousness, he's struck with the same thought he had when he first died to Hanan: _At what point did I lose it?_ Collapsed on the ground, he staggers back to his feet and turns to see the other nine unmoving, bodies settled with the dust.

Where is he? He scans his surroundings, this dark stone cavern. A single ray of sunlight mars the hallowed cave, and it does so with a scathing eye, illuminating Tala in the true centre of the room.

He's beginning to feel as though he has already lived this moment.

He doesn't know where _here_ is. He doesn't have the energy to acknowledge his own existence for much longer. He turns to the other Eternals in an attempt to perceive anything outside himself. The determination in their eyes remains, even with the profound losses dealt against them.

His body to Hanan, his heart from Mayari. He cannot forget. He is of the same magic now.

These bones of his ache to return to the earth. The poison in his bloodstream saps his conscious thought. And yet, he is the most untouched; the other Eternals cannot keep themselves upright, hiding behind fallen stalactites to replenish their ammunition, to make rudimentary reparations to their weapons, or simply to rest, hidden enough from Tala's physical attacks to recover but still vulnerable to her cries. He watches them stumble over the same, repetitive actions.

Through perceiving them, he remembers himself, and he frowns. He observes them outside the creek of time; Tala's anguish does nothing to him. It resonates with Mayari and Hanan's protection housed in his rib cage.

What does he have left to do?

When Six regains consciousness—

Beside him, Siete crawls up into a standing position again. Six knows it should take too much energy to summon a spirit sword from pure ether, but Siete does it regardless. He summons all ten of the Heaven's Mercies, even as each physical sword exists on their bodies; the part of Six that still persists wakes up once more, creaking from dust.

Siete takes one step forward before Tala cries out. On his broken leg, he falls, face scraping against the stone beneath him to join the other eight on the ground. Six watches the rise and fall of their chests, their slow blinks, the blood draining from their injuries. Their eyes are unfocused, pain written in every line of their expressions, but _still_ there is a determination that nothing can destroy, from eternal damnation to the heavens themselves, as they all lift themselves up.

There is no change in the state of her restraints. They've made almost no progress.

_Almost_ none.

At the edge of the skies, Six exists outside the creek of time, alone in his stable existence.

But without the others to remember him for who he was, he never could have existed to begin with—they gave him breath to stand here and witness the world. It began with his sacrifice for Nio, and he would end this by his own hands for all of their sakes.

There was only one thing he could do, as a dam ready to burst free.

He was always a child of the night, shrouded in shadows. He is no stranger to the void of loss, but now, the first star of the night guides his tenacious hope through the fog. That light, forming in the stardust, has no form of its own, so he gives it the name _the Eternals_. He gives it _Siete_ , and the ache in his heart begins again.

The ache in his heart begins again. His heart is _ach_ _ing_. He is still alive, still conscious enough to perceive his heart struggling with each pump, and as he focuses on each heartbeat, his most rudimentary senses return so he can continue to observe the blood pumping through his body. Instead of allowing the weight of love to crush his chest until his ribs break skin, he uses its gravity to warp the rest of his thoughts around it, creating an anchor.

_When the day comes where I meet my end,_

He staggers back to his feet and turns to see the other nine unmoving, bodies settled with the dust.

The Eternals cannot retain present thoughts, let alone past memories. They are at the mercy of their own powers, their own minds. Their expectations for him exist no longer, unable to perceive outside of themselves, holding themselves together with the last of their energy lest they fall to ruin. He could turn away here and save himself, now that he is forgotten to the Eternals.

He could, but he never wants to.

He tests standing on his own two feet, weightless and yet with the density of the universe coiled within his chest. They may not remember him, but he wants to meet the expectations they had of him, as a better man than he could ever imagine. If he delays any longer, they'll remain here, corpses with enduring soul, until the end of time bursts into a new beginning.

Tala croons at him, lapping at his boundaries of present and everything else instead of drowning him in her current. He takes a step forward into the creeks of time, and the waters fill in the footsteps he leaves behind.

_I know I will not be alone._

The others still bleed, weighed by the passage of time but never outside of it. To the bitter end and past it, they will fight; their magic fails, but their resolve lives on in broken bodies and lost minds. Tala has taken her toll on their capacities, and they use every last breath for encouragement, bleeding their throats dry instead of keeping themselves in one whole. A new wave of unfettered energy flares up within him, hands tightening into fists, gloves in tatters, the wedding ring to which he was always weak glittering bright.

_Not in despair,_

Someone's voice calls out to him: desperate, sweet, joyous. It sounds like the times Siete has called for him throughout the years, echoing in his mind as one messy chorus.

_but in the memory of your love for me,_

Is it better to have loved and lost, or to never have loved at all?

Trite words, he thinks. It's been an eternity since he'd last thought about them, but he has an answer now, doesn't he?

_and mine for you._

A real answer, this time.

He would love, again and again, even if it meant losing it all once more. Love is the only thing that has ever remained consistent in his life, filling a void then occupying a space.

Power replaces the blood in his veins, so arcane that it shrieks about reducing him to nothingness, to return him whence he came as stardust in the sky. His body should not be able to contain this lightning, nor should his heart be capable of pumping it through him, but it is futile to consider what should and should not be possible. There is no time here. There is only forward and backward, and so he continues on, each step sealing the promise he made to Siete.

His heart, if not his mind or his body, has always known. There exists within him knowledge that no primal beast could seal away. Half of it resides with him, the other half with Siete, and the other eight caught in this whirlpool of time watched their promise.

_May the stars and the moon be my witness, and may the sun bring forth bloom._

There were more witnesses. But as their vessel, if he tries to reach any further than the ten of them, he would break.

This promise cannot die. He and Siete shared it with each other, with their closest friends. The willingness to sacrifice the privacy of their vows kept the stars in the sky.

_I promise to you, with my life in your hands and my sword at your feet, that in your darkest hours I will remain by your side._

The primal beasts could not seal away what each of them scattered and planted in the hearts of those they loved. Trust, friendship, _love_ always has a way of rekindling with the tiniest spark. As long as those sparks remained, they would live on.

_That when the sun rises again, I will be there with you to bask in the warmth._

He turns around to the Eternals. His bones creak and break and rebuild. Wounds reopen, close, form again. His ribs pierce through his chest, seven stars born, seven scars remaining. They heal. They tear him apart. They sew him back together. Blood spills from his injuries in a steady trickle, a macabre hourglass to remind him that he is alive and whole until he completes his final duty.

_That I will always come to your aid, no matter the circumstances._

"I won't be gone for long," he reassures, croaking out the words. His enlightenment springs to his fingertips as a culmination of the power with which he was born and the one he drew from being with the Eternals. It swirls outwards to shield him and create a barrier, both existing outside time and becoming as one with it, so he can meet Tala as she is beneath her restraints. Obsidian guards him from the shattering glass that accompanies each of his footfalls against the unstable earth, and light blue stars explode in his vision as he leaves the Eternals behind.

_I promise, Six, that I will do everything in my power to help you keep your happiness._

Is there any more air in this chamber through which his voice can carry? "Thank you."

_I promise to never hide behind lies and be my whole, true self._

One last thing.

"Siete," he shouts, turning to face the one he loves, ignoring that Tala looms behind him. "I'm sorry. But more than anything, I have a promise to keep with you."

He closes his fingers around the hilt of the sword at his hips, covering its inscription, but the words are etched into his own palms. Siete made this sword with the shape of both of their hands, one of his closed around one of Siete's, and it weighs no more than his claws. The words on the hilt are his own, formed by his own clumsy hands, but his. Theirs.

The sound of steel against steel when he removes it from its scabbard sounds like Siete's own shy smile breaking out into a brilliant grin, and a smile mirrors on his own lips.

_I promise to support every one of your endeavours as if they were my own._

The sword is an extension of his arm, as Siete always intended. The power through his body welcomes it, accepting it as its own. His own blood pours down to christen it.

His mortal frame cannot hold this power for any longer.

Through the shield of his enlightenment, he sees Siete's eyes widen. Siete stumbles to stand up, but his broken leg drags behind him, useless. He can't take a single step before he falls. He shouts Six's name. He shouts _Six_ , and he shouts the name on the inside of his ring beside _forever and always_ , and he shouts everything he can with the energy he should save for his own recovery.

Siete shouts that name again, and it comes to him that this energy through his veins is the collapse of one star and the rebirth of another, from dust to dust.

Idiot.

_I promise to believe in your strength, in the integrity of your actions, and the honesty of your conviction._

"Siete," Six starts. "Alexander," Xing ends. "I love you," he's saying the entire time, and for a moment, out of pity or perhaps involuntarily, Tala gives him a single gift for his resolution to release her.

_I love you, and I will for the rest of my life and whatever happens beyond._

The memory of their wedding day, the physical sensation of Siete putting the ring onto his finger, kissing him until the sun set. This is the first and only memory returned to him of this day, and when his eyes strain to peer outside the stained glass, the first star of the night twinkles at them. Like her sister who watched in daybreak, her other sister who watched under moonlight, she had been there to guide them.

It is a shame that their wedding was the final piece to make him whole once more.

He walks away from Siete, from the Eternals, before he can hesitate any longer. His enlightenment is escaping form, the mass of magical energy bending light and absorbing everything that the blade can't reflect into darkness. The longer he is indecisive about which realm to belong to, the less he can do for those he loves while he still remembers them.

As he approaches Tala, he hears more voices that are not his own, nor those of the Eternals. He hears hundreds of years of Arawo's residents laughing, crying, sharing their lives with each other.

After millennia of stringing the affairs of mortals and Astrals alike, she and her sisters beg not for defeat of their unstable forms, but a restoration of balance—reverse becoming upright, caged becoming free. Tala, like her sisters, is necessary.

Only mortals like him could grasp the inherent power of limited time. Without an eternity, the boundaries placed upon them are what elevates their spirits to extraordinary heights. The invulnerability that his enlightened state grants is not permanent. His time will run out, but for now, this time, this space, this world is his.

He started life with blood on his hands and people he thought he could trust lying around him in battered heaps; he will end his life with the people he _knows_ he can trust cheering him on with their persevering spirits, because he has fought for them, and they for him.

He is not alone. He never will be.

A roar bursts from his chest, the pure cry of his beating heart. Wind whips around the tatters of his uniform, his unkempt hair, and even as it cuts through his skin, it feels like a summer breeze. It feels like his room at the base, the windows open on laundry day, caressing him while he falls asleep. It feels like the wind of a dawning storm slicing against his back, but now, he is the storm.

It feels like Siete's arms around his waist. It feels like their sword in his hand.

"Remember me, who stands before you now in the compassion of understanding no single mortal was meant to bear!" Louder, in a voice that resonates with Tala's endless cries, he is born again. "Remember _us_ , the ten ten who clawed out of ruin to bring about your liberation!"

Unbridled power explodes around his fists, bursting to envelop the sword, and he charges. The blade shatters on impact with her bonds, and each shard of darkness launches back at him; only the hilt remains intact, and he grips it as his anchor.

With his true name on his left ring finger and the reminder of his promise on his right palm, he reaches through the opportunity that Siete's sword created, gripping with his claws through the tears of time. He allows Tala to embrace him with her final gift of protection: he falls into her darkness, far from the excruciating heat of gravity compressing and expanding to the size of the universe.

_I will love you until the day death comes to take me—_

Somewhere beyond mortal perception, he sets her free.

_and past that, because it can never take the heart that you have claimed by your own two hands._


	10. eternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> edit [july 6, 2020] PLEASE see: **[ame's illust for this chapter!!](https://twitter.com/reaiame/status/1279972708583747584)  
> **  
>  more specifically, the moment between the previous chapter and this one. i am CRYING. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING ;;__;; IT'S BEAUTIFUL HELLOOO

He doesn't remember falling asleep, and he barely feels like he's back in the waking world when he lifts his head through the inescapable gravity of exhaustion to turn to the window. The aches in his neck flare up again. Neither he nor Siete are morning people, so the curtain shouldn't be open, but it's possible that they were too tired from whatever they were doing last night to bother with anything more than tumble into bed.

He tosses and turns, but even in his half awake state, he knows that sleep will not return to him tonight. His shirt clings to his skin, damp with sweat. The sky is still dark, but with resignation for a restless night, he crawls out of bed to shut the curtains, trying not to disturb Siete.

(He trusts that Siete's behind him, but he can't bring himself to check.)

His feet are cold against the floor as he creeps to the window, expecting to find the shadows of the base outside. Instead, he finds a cliff, and beneath that, the open sky covered by clouds. The moon has disappeared, and only the most persistent stars are still hanging in the sky before the sun's eventual rise. During this liminal space with neither the moon nor the sun, the night is so dark that he can't see his hand when he extends it in front of him through the open window.

He doesn't know where this place is, but his heart is tranquil despite his confusion, telling him not to worry. _There's no need to worry_ , he repeats to himself, sinking into this blackness.

No sooner does he accept what he's being told does a beam of light sweep the infinite clouds; this isn't their base, but a lighthouse. Curiosity overcoming him, he puts his hands on the windowsill to lean out, watching for more beams of light to reveal his surroundings. The lighthouse's beam makes one last pass when the sun breaks over the horizon, and the first rays blind him.

When he regains his bearings, someone is embracing him from behind, letting out a contented sigh. When did Siete wake up? He should have heard the rustle of bedsheets, Siete's breathing shifting from patterns of sleep into wakefulness. Instead of being startled by his sudden appearance, he sinks into the unexpected warmth.

He leans back, lets his hands slip off the windowsill, and he relaxes into the hold. Siete rests his chin on his head and yawns, tightening his arms around his waist. "Morning," Siete rumbles, and he can tell Siete wishes he wasn't awake. He wishes he was sleeping too, still in bed beside Siete without worries—not that he has any. "You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep." The response is automatic, but even to his groggy thoughts, it tastes like a lie in his mouth. He frowns. As the sun rises, he senses that every part of him is at ease except his mind, still searching in the fading darkness for that which he cannot place into words.

"If you come back to bed with me, we could probably do something more fun that'll make you forget you can't sleep." Siete chuckles, kissing the crown of his head before settling again.

The sun is rising. He's on top of the world, miles above anyone else, with the man he loves the most holding him close. He could rest here forever knowing that he'd found what he'd always wanted and was too afraid to admit. It would be fine to stay here, he thinks, where everything is indefinite, but indefinitely happy.

"You aren't mine," he decides, craning his neck to see out of the window.

"Blunt, as always." Siete's fond timbre in response is so understanding, so _familiar_ that his weary heart aches at the sound of it. He's drowning in warmth now. His heart begs him to close his eyes and lean back, insisting that his suspicions amount to nothing.

He presses his back against Siete's chest—but it feels hollow. It lacks two heartbeats. It lacks one in his chest, beneath stark-white ribs beaten down by a heart too big for the world. It lacks one made by Six's hands and strung through a chain as a keepsake.

"Man, a guy asks his husband to sleep with him, and suddenly they're calling it all off, huh?"

Every star twinkles out of the sky. He squints. The coming morning is too bright. He could almost give in, and as he entertains the thought, Siete laughs as if he were privy to a secret that he weren't.

That laugh spreads across his skin until he knows he's warm and safe. "Well," Siete says, nuzzling into his ears, "I'll still love you forever, _Six_. Even if you think I'm less sexy because I was a morning person for once in my life."

Six's eyes flicker open when a wind caresses his face.

Through the window, teasing the edge of his vision, the Eternals' ship sails through. The deck bustles with life even in these early hours. If he strains his ears, he can hear the morning ruckus; Funf practicing her magic while Okto meets Sarasa's complaints about how unfair their early morning spars are with a booming laugh. Quatre and Esser passing each other with a short conversation and small smiles, one returning with the sun and the other departing with the moon. Nio's melodies reaching him from below deck. Uno and Song preparing breakfast. Their uniforms' colours seem inverted, but when Six strains his eyes, he recognizes the same black, gold, and red.

He looks down at himself, at the sun reflecting off the golden band on his left finger, at the immaculate white and royal purple outfit from their wedding fitting on this body. He sees Siete's arms around him in the old uniform he once recruited Six in, vambraces not yet disfigured with battle over the years.

Six raises his head to look out the window again, no longer blind. "I love you too," he says as he closes his fingers around Siete's wrists to pry them from his waist.

He expects more resistance, but Siete sighs like he expected it, lifting his chin off from Six's head. He knows that sigh, and so he's sure that Siete's wearing the same melancholy smile he showed Six during the time he lost his memory. He links their fingers together, feeling the rings brush against each other, and then he lets go to turn and face him.

In the low morning sun, just above the horizon, Six casts a shadow against half of his face, long and imposing.

Six was wrong.

The smile he expects to see is absent. He meets only with sadness and resignation. Behind him is an empty bed with rumpled sheets, their belongings and their picture frames scattered as he remembers, but without a door against the opposite wall.

With his heart hurtling toward the ground, Six smiles at him. Siete reflects his smile back, his eyes glassy with unshed tears. "You won't stay?" His voice is low, fading away with the night. He asks like he already knows the answer.

Of course Siete does. If Six himself knows the answer, then every last molecule of this universe in his hands knows.

 _You aren't my Siete._ "That was never an option."

"Not even for a second more?" His voice is too jagged around the edges, cut sharp with desperation that makes Six's heart bleed until he can't bear to look—but the higher the sun grows, the less his shadow eclipses Siete, until he can almost see the lips that have always shaped Siete's smile, his laughter, his anger and sadness.

"I lost my grasp on the precious seconds we had together." Six's words rush forth for his sunrise confessional. "I made that first unnecessary sacrifice because I thought I wasn't worthy enough for your love. I should have trusted you more. And I will."

He backs up until bumps into the windowsill, the wind tousling his hair. He jumps up onto the ledge, and Siete follows him, like he expects. He reaches his right hand out to cup Siete's cheek, wiping his warm tears from under his eye away, as his other hand grips the windowsill tighter.

This Siete isn't the one he knows, but this Siete is still one of his own making.

"I don't want to waste any more time here." Six has already said everything he needs to, but with this Siete in front of him, he feels as though he needs to say more. "I'm sorry, Siete."

"Stop apologizing." When Siete kisses the palm of Six's hand, it's with a smile.

That apology _was_ more for Six himself, wasn't it? "Then… I'll be seeing you soon."

Siete raises an eyebrow at him, knowing as Six does that they won't meet here ever again.

Six lets him go, balancing on the windowsill. When he falls backwards into the clear blue sky, the morning sun chases away the night. Without Six's shadow, he can see the acceptance in Siete's smile, the words of promise his lips form—and then, Six is too far away.

Underneath him, the commotion of the other Eternals grows louder. He lets Siete's grin find a home on his own face and trusts that the wind will guide him to their ship.

Stardust in his flaxen hair, moonbeams in his honest smile; a broken hourglass and a wide open field.

* * *

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but his pain is so great that he remembers the next time he wakes. Each nerve ignites to inform him of the shape of his body, as if in the process of reconnecting his mind to his body to his heart. He might still be tumbling through that void onto their ship, breaking each bone in his return from non-existence, shattering his whole into parts for all of eternity.

The first and only physical sensation he experiences is the disgusting itch of sand in his mouth. His lungs have no air with which to cough, so he closes his eyes again and trusts that there will be a _next time_ after this formless, disembodied nothing.

* * *

It could be anywhere from mere milliseconds to entire years when consciousness dawns on him once again. This time, despite the misery scratching from within him trying to break out, he can tell that his skin is clean—no soil or sand, no blood or tears. The surface he's laying on is uncomfortable, but someone's attempted to make it bearable for him with extra blankets and a pillow.

His eyes are dry as he peels them open far enough to see someone next to him, his head weighed down with exhaustion, snoring into the night.

The first coherent thought he can form is that Siete was right, and to call it _coherent_ would be optimistic. He doesn't consider himself dramatic, but even he could see the inherent theatrics in monologuing during what everyone believed to be his final stand, only to survive. Siete always _did_ say he was too dramatic sometimes, didn't he?

Siete.

His mind focuses on Siete to anchor himself in the world of the living—the hazy concept of him, his tired silhouette against the moonlight, his _name_ —running a needle over them like grooves in a record, his fingers itching to touch with the grooves of his fingerprints. To the beat of the second hand dangling around Siete's neck, he focuses on each pillar of Siete's existence.

Siete.

Siete's loud snoring is equal parts comical and endearing, and his lips twitch upwards. It's a constant—an annoying constant, the way Siete always was to him. This time, when his heart tells him to relax, he knows this wave of consciousness carries no trickery. He leaves Siete to rest for a while longer, focusing on regaining a position in the physical world.

As he grows more alert, he shifts his attention to his body before he extends into the environment. He starts by taking a deep breath. He revels in the sensation of air filling his lungs, blood flowing through his veins. He creaks to life, each breath he takes bringing him from a spectre's existence.

He turns his ears like he has to shake off rust, twitching and straining to hear sounds outside of Siete's snoring. Sandpaper scrapes against his eyes with each blink. He tries to roll his neck, but a cast impedes the movement. His involuntary frown from the dull aches throughout his body informs him that he's in perfect shape to disapprove of any distasteful jokes Siete has for him.

_Siete._

In a moment of acute panic, he moves the thumb of his left hand to touch his ring finger; feeling the golden band floods him with relief so potent he could return to sleep instead of continuing his investigation. The muscles in his arm ignite with soreness when he tests them, tensing and relaxing, but they respond to his calls to action. He fights through the ache to lift his hand high enough to see their ring through his half-open eyes.

He lets it drop, heaving out a sigh, and moves to his right—

The tiredness drains from his mind, body lethargic but thoughts racing.

Nothing.

There is nothing below his right shoulder. Underneath the rapid beating of his heart, he imagines his final blow against Tala's bonds. Even through the shield of his enlightenment, his right arm must have shattered. It was ruin's blessing that strengthened him to pierce through her cage, and it was ruin's blessing that traded his life—past, present, and future—for a mere arm.

He grits his teeth. The ache in his right shoulder becomes more salient, but he presses onward. It's hard to shift in the bed, but both of his legs are present, if not restrained in casts. Gentle movement unfolds the burns marring his body, aches where Tala's magic hacked and sewed scars against his skin.

He's alive. The pieces of his heart and mind are haphazard in this broken shell, but he's _alive_. With that confirmation, his mind wanders to his surroundings; he'll think about the other Eternals soon, but first, he endures one last obstacle to turn to his left, where Siete snores.

He's paid the price once for believing that he had an eternity to show Siete know how much he loves him, for placing both faith and doubt in the wrong places. The pain striking through his body as he lifts his left hand to place it on top of Siete's is nothing compared to what he suffered to return to life.

"Siete."

The mere act of speech ignites a new blaze of discomfort, seeking a scorching path with his veins as its route—but he would destroy himself again for Siete. His voice is only a murmur the first time, and he musters energy from every corner of his aching body to say his name louder, closing his eyes with exertion.

" _Siete._ "

Siete doesn't wake. Siete doesn't even _stir_. He snores on, the way he's always snored beside him in bed, chest pressed against his back. Of all the words he could have chosen for their reunion, he never expected _anticlimactic_. That even _Siete_ wouldn't rise to the occasion of a dramatic meeting is enough to elicit a ghost of a laugh out of him.

"Oi," he rasps out, before laughter consumes him.

His body protests his joy, but he's never been so happy to be alive.

Above his rust-coloured voice, he _finally_ hears Siete's voice, no longer conjured from memory but vibrating the air between them. "Six?"

Never has Six heard a sound so sweet. It seeps into his veins until it bubbles up into a smile that splits his face apart, and he says for the third time, "Siete."

At once, every emotion passes over Siete's face; he leans away in disbelief to reveal the scar closing his left eye and bursting across the side of his face. The streaks of grey in his hair are as luminous as the moonlight. Siete's emotions culminate into the most brilliant smile Six has ever seen, tears springing to the corners of his remaining eye, and it brings forth another laugh that causes Six more mirth than agony. "Why are you laughing?" Siete asks while joining him in laughter, as overwhelmed as he is.

"How many years have you teased me for my dramatics during inappropriate times? I believed this to be the single most crucial time for a tearful reunion, and you failed me." Six's throat protests with croaking out each word, but his words have never been important as they are now. He doesn't recognize his own voice—not because he still has none of his memories, but because he remembers _everything_ , and not once has he sounded this laboured. "And yet, you didn't respond when I called for you."

"A voice like that is like, something of my nightmares, y'know? I thought I was still sleeping." Siete puts his hand in Six's, squeezing. "You sound like you came from the Crimson Horizon."

"Like I've been through hell and back?" Six grins.

Siete's next laugh turns into a sob. But when he raises his head again, Six finds that the smile has never left. "A little bit."

"More than hell." Six's eyes dart to the space where his right arm would lay, and Siete's eyes follow. "You may have to revisit my resignation announcement from the Eternals."

Guilt and uncertainty about his joke warp in his chest when it shatters Siete's smile, but Six keeps his grin wide enough for Siete to take one look at him and pout instead. When he sighs with relief, his body sags until he's resting his head on the bed railing. "Don't play with me like that, please. Especially since this mission aged me like, forty years," he mutters, running a hand through his hair. "I greyed _early_."

"I'm sorry." Six squeezes Siete's hand. The burns on his arm pull apart from where they're seared onto his skin, but it's worth Siete's hand in his. "It's not bad," he croaks out, glancing at Siete's hair again, silver from stress and near-death.

"Yeah, I guess we match now. You and half the Eternals after that fight, wait until you see them." Siete shifts in his seat to lean closer, cupping his face. Six leans into the touch. "We need to work on you apologizing so much. And your jokes. But first things first."

Siete breathes out his next words, scared to hear the answer. "You remember?"

Six nods, not trusting his voice. He's growing tired, but he fights it. He'll fight it to the ends of the skies, again and again and _again_.

Siete beams at him with a happiness that Six feels as his own. Even if he were to lose everything again, he knows they will always find their love, and grateful pride rises within him. "That was, maybe, _the_ worst month of my life," Siete groans. "But as bad as that was for me, it must have been worse for you—wait, do you want water?"

Six gathers a response, but this time, he coughs, sparks of white flying in his vision as his entire body recoils with the motion. Siete stands up to get him water, but Six shakes his head, holding onto his hand tighter.

When the fit subsides, he groans out, "Sleeping again soon." He doesn't want to close his eyes, lest he go another day without seeing Siete by his side, but the state of his body beckons for him to rest. "Everything hurts."

"Should I get the nurse?"

"I want to talk to you first."

"No, you should rest—"

A sudden thought tackles him, forcing him to blurt over Siete's concerns before he can finish. "Siete, marry me?" His grin turns lopsided as he drifts away, but he tangles his fingers with Siete's for good measure.

Siete doesn't miss Six's wince, but he squeezes back on instinct. "What—Why are you asking again?" His voice breaks, and he rubs his nose with the hand not holding Six's.

"I made you go through the effort of relearning me again after I lost my memory. It's only fair that I take responsibility. And as you proposed last time, I would like my chance now."

Siete looks _heartbroken_. Six has never wanted to tease him more than when he shuts his eye and cries into the crook of his elbow, silent sobs mixed with incredulous laughter.

Heart light with elation, Six suggests, "Is my idea so abhorrent as to bring you to tears?"

"Shut up and propose," Siete says, looking up at him, still crying.

"Our positions seem reversed. Do you need tissues?"

"Yeah," Siete sniffles. He stumbles around like a lost man to grab the box of tissues sitting on the bedside table, and the sound of him blowing his nose is unnecessarily loud.

Siete has always been so much, in a way that Six thought he could never meet. He tried to go so far to prove his love for Siete that he almost destroyed it instead. An arm for his world was enough to teach him his lesson, one he doesn't plan on having to learn again.

"Do I even remember the words with which I wanted to propose?" He hums to himself when Siete puts the tissues away. "My memory has returned, but I may have lost those words organically to time."

"Okay, you definitely have your memory back if you're being this mean to me." Siete sounds clogged up, but he continues to give him his rapt attention.

"Siete."

He looks Siete in the eye. Siete holds his breath.

"Will you marry me?"

Siete waits a few seconds in silence before bursting out into laughter. That, too, is loud, like fireworks in the night sky. His smoky laugh curls into Six's lungs and keeps him warm. "That's it? You made me cry for _that?_ "

"Have I ever needed anything more?"

"I was ready for a speech! You gave me an entire speech just to make fun of me for not being awake the first time you called for me!"

"Then, the words I have for you haven't changed. Siete, marry me."

Siete snorts, wiping at his nose. "I'll marry you again, then. No matter how many times you ask."

"Then I'll keep asking, should I forget again. By your side is where I'm fated to be, and if I must rip the skies apart with my bare hands to find my way there again, then so be it."

A new wave of sobs racks Siete. It hurts to be awake now, but Six uses the last of his consciousness to raise his hand up and wipe his tears away. "I need rest. Every movement pains me. But I won't leave you, Siete."

"You never did." Siete sniffles, and he tries a shaky grin. "Babe."

He meets the challenge Siete poses him, now that he has his memory intact—including their wedding. When he makes eye contact, Siete's grin brightens. "Husband," he says.

Siete's abrupt laugh pierces through the moonless night within their room, and Six falls back asleep, linking their fingers together.

* * *

Once he can stay awake for longer than an hour at a time, Siete brings in the Eternals to see him. Funf's ear-to-ear grin when she sees him is even more impish with her hair, short and spiky enough to rival Siete's mess on a regular day. Six almost doesn't notice the rest of the Eternals' scars when Funf bounces into a chair by his side and greets him with a short laugh and a scream of, "Look what Tala did to my hair!"

"All of ours," Song says with a sigh as she plays with the ends of her hair, now ending just above her shoulder with streaks of grey. "But it _does_ make us look more uniform."

"Most of us had long hair to begin with." With Esser's own short hair tied back with a barrette, she looks more like her brother than ever before.

Each of the Eternals chat among themselves with raspy voices, greeting Six as they settle around him with their own marks from the beasts—and together, they recount the lost moments between his sacrifice and now.

Their descriptions differed, but the conclusion they came to was that, by falling to Hanan and offering a favour to Mayari, he came to harness an enlightenment that left him untouched by the magic of Tala's time. With infinite stores of power at his fingertips, he created an army of his own shadows to pierce through the first layer of her restraints. With one opening, a fight of ruin against ruin began.

 _It was like watching two galaxies collide,_ Funf says, interrupting Uno's explanation.

 _Allow others to speak_ _,_ _Funf_ _,_ Okto says. Not hearing him, she shakes her head, trying to find the words.

_No—it was like watching stars being born from dust._

At Six's first collision with the beast beneath the chains, shrapnel ricocheted through the cavern, and that attack manifested in different ways for each of them—an arrow through the heart, a bullet in the chest, a blade cleaving them in two—but they unanimously describe that moment as _death_. Instead of blackness, there was a nothingness that a living mind was never meant to comprehend.

Each of them received visions of the afterlife tempting them to eternal rest. As they explain this to Six, he turns his head and counts ten, including himself. Sarasa shrugs when she notices. _There's too much stuff to do to just_ _…_ die _like that_. _It was close, but when I realized I_ _wasn't stuck there_ _…_

She doesn't continue. She doesn't need to.

Returning to consciousness, to _life_ , was slow. Their bodies and souls were reconstructed, piece by piece, until they could stand on the ground beneath them and take air into their lungs. Their memories were scrambled but intact; the only thing to focus on was their present, and all of them watched, with their senses creeping into their unsteady minds, as Siete ignored his broken leg and stood straight. He was so covered in blood and soot that if not for the hole in the cavern against where Six stood for his final sacrifice, he would have been indistinguishable from the underground desolation.

The light of the setting sun reflected off the clouds to blind their reborn eyes, and the inky black night was but a suggestion in the horizon. Siete walked forward until he collapsed, and it was then that they noticed Six's body, lying face up on the ground, as broken as they were without the protection of enlightenment.

Above Siete's silhouette, cradling Six's body, Tala appeared to them, one foot pointed forward and her arms reaching out, as if to embrace them. She glowed brighter until the night's first star appeared behind her, and then she faded into the dusk, swallowed by the sunset.

When day became night, when the stars across the galaxy filled the depths of the endless dark sky, when the moon returned to hang in the impenetrable darkness—the Eternals rose to follow Siete's collapse over Six's body, pieces missing but still as one whole crew.

Siete turned with a fervour that sent waves of panic through all of them when he insisted that Six still had a heartbeat. Uno took it upon himself to check Six's heartbeat, and he confirmed. It was faint, but it was _there_.

 _None of us would have been ready to tell Siete he was wrong._ Uno's face until that recollection is twisted with tension, all of it releasing with those words. _I was far from it. But I'm ecstatic to welcome you back, Six._

 _You better not die again_ , Quatre interrupts, _or I'll really goddamn kill you myself to make it official._

Even as Quatre made a splint with broken weapons, Siete stumbled over and over again, trying to stand on his own two feet, but he persevered until he could support Six's weight. None of the Eternals dared to take Six away from him.

For another eternity, they didn't have access to their magic. Funf couldn't heal, and Nio couldn't augment them. _But_ _everything_ _was_ _back_ _in order,_ Nio says. Awe in her voice is rare for Six to hear. _P_ _arts of me that I didn't_ _know were_ _misaligned returned to normal._

The journey out of the mountain was more logical than the journey into its core, no longer at the mercy of flexible time, and they would wait when Siete needed to pause to catch his breath—but not once did they take Six from him.

The steps leading down from the temple were stable, but with their knees weak, gravity became their greatest enemy for one thousand steps. It was through sheer force of will that Six never fell from Siete's arms or that none of them stumbled on the way down. Gran's stationed crew met them at the foot of the mountain, and with one look at their condition, they escorted the ten of them to the Grandcypher instead of their own airship.

Six remained unconscious for almost two weeks, but the others recovered within a few days, Siete being the last of them. Physical recovery was slow, until _time_ rippled through the skydom, righting what was wronged, the settling sisters draining residual magic from their bodies. They returned to their state before Hanan with extra scars, lasting injuries, and new memories.

Six looks to Siete's right eye, to the lightning-burst scars shooting across both of Funf's arms, to Quatre's torn ears.

Their friends and loved ones were more concerned with memory loss, but with persistent questioning and those on the Grandcypher offering their powers to peer into their minds, they confirmed that everything was intact. With their own health as stable as it could be, they visited Six every day—except for Siete, who crawled out of his own hospital bed the second he was capable and stayed there.

 _The first few days that Siete could walk on his own,_ _t_ _he only time he would open his mouth was to ask how Six was. It_ _was_ _familiar._ Uno laughs, and Quatre scoffs.

When Siete averts his gaze, Esser hides her smile behind her hand. _Very familiar._ _Even down to Quatre having to bring_ you _food when you wouldn't eat._

Siete scratches his cheek. _You can't blame me._

Quatre smacks him behind the head. _Uno can't, but I can._

When one week passed without Six waking, Phoebe, as if confessing a sin, offered her power to survey Six's dreams. Siete denied it. He trusted that Six would return to him.

"And when I did, you weren't there for me." Six's ensuing grin makes Siete put his head in his hands.

Song raises her eyebrows, her familiar smile now rising to her lips. "Wait, what?"

"It was an appropriately dramatic arrangement for my return to consciousness—" A coughing fit assaults Six, and Siete rubs his back. It does nothing to help him, but the weight of Siete's hand is comfort enough. "I woke, under the moonlight, with Siete sleeping by my side. I said his name, and yet, he didn't wake until I laughed at him."

"I made up for it," Siete whines as the Eternals poke fun at him. Six recalls the night, and his smile falters as he talks about testing his movements, only to find his arm gone.

Caught in the tangled web of their recollections, he'd almost forgotten about his right arm. He swallows. "How was my arm when you found me?" he asks when the chatter in the room fades.

Siete runs his fingertips over Six's right shoulder, not touching the scar, but close enough for Six to lean in and allow him. "The wound was already closed," Siete murmurs, "but you'd lost a lot of blood. Lying in a whole pool of it."

His right arm twitches with the desire to reach out for Siete, and then nausea hurtles through him when he finds nothing there, but his body begs to touch—"Throwing up," he announces.

Funf is already prepared with a pan from beside the bed, eyes wide as he clambers to take it into his arm. Six empties the sparse contents of his stomach into it, and she holds his hair out from his face. The sound of his projectile sick collides against the metal until his throat to his lips stings with acid.

To wipe the sweat off his face, he reaches up with his right hand—he dry heaves again.

He's still dizzy when he can prop himself back up, and to his horror, he finds most of the Eternals looking at him. "Avert your gaze," he says, his voice shattered and hoarse, grateful for when Esser returns from the corner of the room with water.

He soothes his dry throat, but it triggers another coughing fit. This one he invites. It distracts him from acknowledging everyone's stares boring into him with concern.

The agony in his body is hell incarnate, the effects of dying once and being torn past mortal limits taking its toll. He still needs more time to recover; it was the sheer stubbornness of his mind that brought him back to the waking world.

"I can't keep my eyes open any longer," he croaks out, for the sake of his friends that would meet him at the end of the skies and pull him from darkness.

The Eternals give him space, filing out after making sure he's comfortable, until the only person left beside him is Siete. "Will you stay until I sleep once more?" Six asks. He already knows the answer.

"I will," Siete says, kissing his temple. The action is physical, anchoring him in the world. It's _real_. This is the Siete he wanted to come home to, risking the one he left behind in that world. "Of course I will. Welcome home, Six."

This time, when Siete holds his hand, Six closes his eyes and accepts the warmth.


	11. yours, forever and always. (epilogue)

He gets the clean bill of health two weeks after he first wakes, one full month after the final battle with Tala. He's told not to exert himself, but as the pervasive sleepiness fades from his conscious spells, he is awake with nothing to do. When the Eternals visit, he asks them to keep his legs and remaining arm stretched and moving to prevent atrophy while they converse about whatever they please.

( _Muscle atrophy takes longer than two weeks_ _to set in_ _,_ Sophia scolded when she first found Sarasa stretching his legs while recounting the joys of her recent hunts, but she turned a blind eye when she realized allowing him this meant he tackled other rehabilitation tasks with more enthusiasm.)

To no one's surprise, Siete visits him the most often. The threats of the skies don't stop for love, and he complains about hooligans not taking _two goddamn days so I can kiss you some more instead of having to stop them_ , but Six wakes up one morning to Siete at his bedside when he expects to be alone.

He rubs the sleep from his eyes, squinting at how the early morning sunlight reflects off Siete's shirt to blind him. When his eyes start to focus, he notices that Siete's dressed much too formally for a regular visit to the Grandcypher's clinic, a suit jacket hanging on the chair behind him to relieve himself from the mid-July heat and his hair tamed into something decent. His head droops with the effort to stay awake, crossed arms wrinkling his shirt, but when Six shifts, he blinks the tiredness from his eyes to look at him.

Self-consciousness prickling at his skin with how Siete is already waiting for him, Six pulls the clinic's thin sheets around him as he sits up, aware of how haggard he still looks from recovery compared to Siete's state of dress, rumpled shirt aside. "Yesterday, Uno told me you would be busy."

"I was. Because I'd be here. That's busy for everyone else but you. Glad he cooperated!" Siete stands up from the chair, dusting off his pants. "Well, I'm about three months too late for this, but better late than never."

Six sputters as Siete swings a leg over the edge of the bed, and then the other, balancing precariously. He scrambles to give Siete space, and as Siete curls up against his right side, he manages to say, "What are you doing?"

"Celebrating our anniversary in bed." Siete shoots him a grin laced with mischief, much too close to his face. Six gives him a questioning pout and gets a peck on the cheek in return. "Not exactly the way I thought celebrating our anniversary in bed would go, but you did say you wanted to keep some blood circulating to prevent muscle atrophy, right? Nothing like, what. Making the beast with two backs?"

Six feels him chuckle more than he hears it. His face feels hot. "I am _not_ doing that here."

"Woof," Siete huffs out. "Worth a shot anyway. But for real, happy one year and three months." His voice softens around the edges, and he leans away from Six for a moment to reach into his suit pocket and retrieve a small envelope.

He shifts to sit cross-legged by Six's side and hands it to him. Six raises an eyebrow. "You iron your clothes once a year, and today, you chose to crumple them without a care?"

"Worth it, but that's not important, because I think past me just unintentionally made the funniest opening sentence in this otherwise sappy letter and I _need_ you to read it."

Six shakes his head, breaking open the wax seal with Siete's family crest on the other side of the envelope. He unfolds the letter inside, and when he reads the first line, he barks out with laughter, rasping out of his chest.

"Right?" Siete laughs alongside him, and Six looks up to see him holding the locket in his hand. "It's like we knew."

_To my dearest guiding star._

* * *

His regular routine is too intensive for his injuries, but nothing stops him from keeping his legs in shape once he's free to return to the base. He wakes up at sunrise to run, his blood coursing through his veins as a reminder he's been given life once more. He makes it a ritual to reflect on his life during these runs, up to and including the five years he'd nearly lost to time.

It doesn't take him long to recover to the point of training with the Eternals again, but despite being ambidextrous, he's always preferred his right arm. His legs and remaining arm are in perfect condition, but as he relied on instinct and trust, he has too many ingrained habits to struggle against during training.

The Eternals won't remove him from their ranks for lacking an arm; they never removed him for losing his memories, and they never removed Nio for losing her powers, so many years ago. Still, where muscle memory brought him back onto an equal playing field, it now fails him. The frustration builds with each attack that doesn't connect, each blow struck against him, until he involuntarily summons a ghost of his shadow, a phantom arm sparking blue-hot to deflect a strike.

It shatters after one hit, and when they stress test the arm, they find that Six cannot use it for offense. It exists only as a defense, and summoning shadows like this takes no additional energy from him. His shadows can distract but not disarm, and it's a blessing and a curse in equal parts. Now that he has a taste of his right arm in battle, he wants it when he sleeps at night, held against Siete's chest to align with his heartbeat. He's back in one whole in the company of friends and the man he loves, but as much as he feels like himself with his memories, he feels like _less._

"Don't ever tell yourself that. Ever again," Siete says to him when Six puts the thought into words, unable to keep it to himself any longer. Siete leans down to kiss him until he drowns into the sheets beneath him, enveloped in unconditional love. "You're more than you'll ever know. More than I could ever dream of, and then some. And besides, it'll be nice to be your right-hand man, if you'd let me."

"Only you could make a joke of something like this." Six twists his fingers into Siete's hair, pulls him down, and kisses him. Even as Six falls back into habits, he trusts Siete enough to be beside him as he claws his way back up.

"Think about it. I'd be your right hand for business _and_ pleasure," Siete purrs against his lips as he caresses Six's skin, feather light. Six tries not to smile at either the sensation or the stupid joke—he _fails_ , and Siete pecks the corner of his lips with a satisfied grin.

Then, his expression turns serious as he presses his forehead against Six's, looking him in the eyes.

"I need you to know how much I love you, now more than ever. You got yourself killed once, almost got yourself killed again, and now your arm is gone. All I have for you is a boner and a permanent wink for you."

His serious demeanour falls away before he even finishes the last sentence, and Six's mouth twists with the effort of not giving him the satisfaction of reacting. "Must you be this way?"

"You wouldn't love me otherwise! Wink," he says, blinking his remaining eye.

He can't hold back his smile for too long, not with Siete in front of him, alive and well and in his arms. "I wouldn't."

When they take a shower afterwards, he sees himself in the mirror and recoils. Burns and scars litter his skin, concentrated on his left arm but for an untouched patch of skin on his ring finger where the wedding ring was and where it remains. He remembers Tala's last gift of their wedding day, the sun setting through the stained glass and painting each of the flower petals.

Behind him, Siete wraps his hands around his waist and leans his head against his shoulder. Six watches the rise and fall of his own chest with his breathing, the seven starburst patterns against his skin. He takes in the bags under Siete's eyes as his lashes tickle his skin, the moisture that dots his shoulder when a tear falls from Siete's eye, and the simultaneous smiles that wane across both of their lips like the crescent moon.

"I missed you," Six says. For now, they need no other words.

* * *

When Six regains his rhythm with the Eternals—in battle, in everyday life, in conversation—he realizes that he's seeing less of Siete. Only when he reflects during a quiet moment, away from the other Eternals, does he notice that Siete is absent from the base.

Even as his first instinct forms in his mind, he frowns, chasing it away, but the malicious voice sneaks in. It whispers that Six finding his place back among their friends created distance between him and Siete, and these old words are infectious habit.

He goes into the bathroom, stares at his right shoulder, and tells himself that it's wrong until he believes it—for at least the next few hours.

Siete leaves early in the morning and returns late, always exhausted but never missing a night of sleeping beside Six. He asks the Eternals whether they've noticed, and all of them answer the same way—that he's gone to the Grandcypher, or that he's out on a mission, but they're not sure. When they give him no more elaborate answers, he can tell that they're trying to distract him from whatever Siete's doing in secret.

He plays along but remains vigilant, and with enough observation, he pieces it together: the Eternals are keeping him away from Siete's workshop. They redirect him from reaching that section of the base, but Six is more attuned than ever to when a part of his perception is missing, let alone deliberately obscured.

One night, he dismisses himself from a late dinner with Esser and Nio, announcing plans to go to bed. He waits until he's alone before sneaking off to Siete's workshop.

Six is at risk of being found by anyone still in the common area—the workshop is on the ground levels of their base, close to their forge and their armoury—but he makes it there undetected to find the door ajar, the orange glow of the lamp spilling out of the cracks and illuminating the dark hallway. He pushes it open, careful not to let it creak. Siete is asleep on the desk, everything pushed in a pile to the side so he can rest his head.

His first reaction is to urge Siete to _come to bed_ , but his plan to scold Siete falls short when he sees the secret project he's been working on, in front of the locket left open and hanging on the wall across from him to keep time.

The world's warmth rushes through Six's veins. Beside Siete is a prosthetic arm in progress, so intricate that Six wants first to dissect each line of love before he can attach it to his shoulder. In front of Siete, there are blueprints full of messy notes across the wall, surrounding the locket, and not all of the handwriting is his; in an instant, he knows for certain that Siete's been visiting the Grandcypher and that there was good reason that the Eternals have been distracting him.

Six is skilled at infiltration and remaining discreet, but he's never learnt how to keep a secret. He entered undetected, but he wakes Siete, biting the inside of his cheek as he jostles him awake. "Siete," he murmurs, his voice choked with emotion.

Siete stirs with a groan, and his eye blinks open, turned up at Six. His lips part, about to say something, and then he bolts upright, craning his neck to look behind Six, where the prosthetic arm is. "Six, wait—"

"I saw," he interrupts, cupping Siete's face in his hands and kissing him. He's let his stubble grow without maintenance, rough against his palms; it's been a while since he's shaved in between spending early hours here and coming to bed late.

"It was a surprise," Siete whines between kisses, groggy with sleep. "You're not supposed to come find me."

"I let you slip through my hands once, I won't let it happen again." The words rush out, overwhelmed with desperation upon remembering that he'd been so despondent to prove that he was worthy of the love Siete gave him he'd caused everyone grief instead.

"Stop, _I_ wanna say the cool one-liners for once." His crescent moon smile softens his words.

Six breaks their kiss, but he traces Siete's jaw with his hand while he turns to the prosthetic.

Siete stifles a yawn to talk. "Devil's in the details, but I had Nick help me out with the finer mechanics of near-organic movement. Mahira found us and offered her own knowledge with machines, all so you could have something that would move. I… still don't get how either of them do what they do, but I'm not complaining." Siete lets his words trail off to stand up, hang his arms around Six's waist, and rest his chin on top of his head. "But only if you want this."

"No," Six says, and he rushes to clarify when he hears Siete's heart skip a beat—"No, I… Siete, you didn't have to."

"No, I kinda did." Siete huffs with laughter. It seeps through Six's skin and settles in his bones. "You know, after all these years, you _still_ frown whenever something's bothering you? Even when you take your mask off. You're great during spars— _very_ sexy when you beat me up—but I can tell you're frustrated. And not the sexy kind of frustrated, either, but rest assured, I'm _very_ attracted—"

"Stop watching me," Six mutters to interrupt him. "And stop—stop saying 'sexy'."

"I can't just _stop_ watching you, I'm in love with you." Siete kisses the crown of his head. "Also, you can't hold back the truth. Maybe it _is_ the sexy kind of frustrated. I would love nothing more than for you to jump my bones whenever you frown like that."

" _Siete_ ," he says with a chuckle, bringing his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose as Siete kisses him again. "I love you too," he murmurs, almost too embarrassed to say it with Siete's antics being what they are. He diverts his attention to the prosthetic. Its design is unassuming but functional, constructed by someone that knows him well. "Can I touch it?"

"My dick, as foreplay before you sweep me off my feet and take me back to our room? Thought you'd never ask."

"The _arm._ "

"It's more like a third leg, but sure, we can go with _arm_ instead. That might solve your problems, actually, if we get a transplant—"

Siete's rambling strikes a chord in him, and he mentally kicks himself for not realizing it earlier. This rambling is separate from the conscious diversions Siete does when Six is spiralling, and he nudges back against him to get his attention. "What are you worried about?"

As he speaks, Siete's incoherent words trail off into a prolonged croak, and then he shakes his head. "You've already seen it." His voice is a whisper now, and he holds Six closer. "I don't wanna ruin any more of the surprise. It's getting there, but it still needs a few final touches before I can go see Mahira and Nick and _then_ get it fitted on you."

Six nods, satisfied with the answer. "Then don't rush it. Come to bed."

Siete no longer sounds nervous nor regretful when he says, "Wait, I wanna show you this feature before we go, now that this isn't a surprise." An impish grin brightens his eyes, and it's contagious enough for Six to feel the same ghost of a smile on his own lips.

How can he resist when Siete gets excited about his work? "If you believe it stable enough to demonstrate."

"It should be good enough for this." Siete removes one of his hands from around Six's waist and leans their bodies forward to manoeuver the fingers of the prosthetic arm. The mechanical aspect is staggering, such that when Six recalls how many days it's been since Siete started disappearing, the answer fills him with a new sense of admiration at how he'd created something so intricate in a short time undetected until now. Siete has always been full of talents that the Eternals confirmed more than they could deny.

Siete positions the fingers with ease with little resistance in the joints from what he can see—and then, Siete uses his undivided attention for this showcase to give the prosthetic hand an upside-down OK sign before poking his own flesh-and-blood index finger through it. Six's ears droop, and he elbows back at Siete's gut.

"Worth it," Siete chokes out before kissing him on the cheek. Waddling with Six in his arms and his chin between his ears, Siete takes the necklace off the wall, drapes it around Six's neck, and then checks the time.

Siete hums with contemplation before saying, "Would you look at that? It's time to get to bed, and I don't mean _sleeping_."

"I know," Six tries to say with exasperation—but seeing Siete this happy after the last two months is exhilarating for him, too. He allows the comment.

In fact, he encourages it, tugging on Siete's wrist to keep him in the workshop instead of back to their room. At his questioning smile, Six slips his hand up his shirt and pushes him back against the wall, drawing over each of his scars and sharing hushed laughter.

* * *

After Six discovers his secret project, Siete comes to bed earlier and wakes up later, closer to his usual schedule. He takes his time now instead of rushing to hide it. With that knowledge, Six is at ease without the Eternals diverting his attention, and he practices extending his shadow selves past an arm until he's capable of creating another self that can take a number of life-ending blows.

There are too many times when he stumbles, when he wants to hide himself from the Eternals, but they refuse to let him retreat into himself. He grows accustomed to his right void both in and out of battle, and the phantom pains draw him toward people, toward himself, instead of toward an emptiness.

He doesn't visit Siete in the workshop anymore, but Siete keeps him updated with his progress, so he isn't surprised the day Siete announces he's finished what he can for the arm. Siete looks like he hasn't slept when Six arrives to see the prototype, but seeing Six makes a smile bloom on his lips and his back to straighten.

Siete fits it for the first time. Worry consumes him as he scribbles notes onto the blueprints, but Six continues holding the arm against his shoulder and tightens its straps. It's perfect by virtue of Siete creating it.

* * *

A few more days of adjustment is all it takes for Siete to declare that they can move on to the next phase. Six tries the arm on when he has time, and it makes his situation worse, his phantom limb in sleep paralysis with an arm that won't respond—but he doesn't voice the thought.

The Grandcypher is bustling today, and their visit is unexpected to everyone but Gran, Nicholas, and Mahira. Siete keeps his arm around Six's shoulders the entire time, no longer hiding the casual affection from the rest of this crew.

Their rings gleam brightest in the early afternoon sun, high in the sky.

They meet Nicholas and Mahira in the Grandcypher's own workshop, where the windows are wide open to let in the sunlight and fresh air. Nicholas jumps into conversation with Siete at first sight, and Mahira wanders over to Six to hold the prosthetic attached to him.

"Excellent work here, Siete," she says, inspecting the finer details. "You didn't need much of my help past the base, after all. I've done preliminary calculations, but if you don't mind…?" She points at the blueprints in Siete's bag, and in the middle of talking to Nicholas, he nods.

"Use what you need," Siete says, and Mahira wastes no time in holding Six's prosthetic hand to walk him to the table. She lays out Siete's blueprints and writes even more formulas Six can't comprehend.

"Now that I see the details up close and personal, I can do more for you than I gave myself credit for," she says, distracted. She doesn't elaborate, and in a room with three mechanical geniuses, Six knows better than to prompt her. She'll continue on her own soon enough. "It's exhilarating to work on something new like this. The mechanics are _obviously_ different from flight, but it's the same idea of doing what everyone tells you is impossible. Or at least, that which is 'very difficult'." She has a sparkle in her eye that tells him that she's made fighting against logic part of her modus operandi.

"So as long as I remain landlocked." Six sighs. Siete put faith in her and Nicholas' guidance, so he does the same, but he's equal parts nervous and curious about how she'll apply her flight knowledge to an _arm_.

He doesn't know what she sees in the lines and diagrams, but recognition flashes on her face, calling for the other two. "I'm ready," Mahira says.

Nicholas laughs, moving from his conversation with Siete. "Go for it! I'm on the edge of my seat with the innovation, here."

Siete shrugs. His smile is easy, his eye glittering bright, but tension lines his stance. He crosses his arms tight against his chest, shoulders hunching over, and he bounces his foot against the ground as he says, "Yeah, Nick helped me get things started, and you certainly did your fair share of supervising us during the drafting process, Mahira. If we've done everything right, you shouldn't have too much of a problem." He bites his nails. "Hopefully."

Mahira turns to Six as Nicholas prepares the final components for his arm. "Are you prepared?"

Six bites the inside of his cheek. "As much as I can be when I don't understand what you two are about to do."

Nicholas grins while he unclasps the leather straps attaching the arm to his shoulder. "You shouldn't need to worry about anything." He mounts light machinery that's even _more_ foreign to Six, but it clicks in place against latches and plugs that Siete designed. "I helped put in everything I've ever learnt over the years about machines. _A_ _nd_ Siete's gone and added extra love into it! You're in good hands."

"Let's begin," Mahira says when Nicholas finishes, clapping once. "Think about balling your right hand into a fist."

The instructions make little sense to him, but he complies, shaking away the nausea of forcing his hand without the shadow extension. As he frowns, she recites words like a spell, her hands hovering around the junction of the prosthetic, Six's arm, and Nicholas' attachments. Her written notes from earlier lift off the page and glow, ink from the pages bleeding into the air like ether and infusing into his arm.

A chill crawls up his spine, but that might be optimistic, because he doesn't understand what this has to do with his arm. The formulae and numbers and letters fade out, leaving only the blueprints and Six's prosthetic.

Six looks at her, at Nicholas, and then at Siete, still biting his nails. Mahira brings him out of his thoughts. "Try it once more," she urges, despite the swirling in his gut at the prospect of calling to a void once again. "Then, lift your hand and point at the ceiling."

Everything about the process escapes him, but he entertains the request. He wills his hand to move, and—there's a considerate delay, but it _moves_. It takes conscious effort to think about curling his fingers in except one, and like he's creaking back to life, the awkward motion follows. He points up to the ceiling a second after he thinks it, and then he uncurls his fingers once more to test his dexterity.

Siete's demonstration may have been a setup for a joke, but because of it, he knows that these joints are smooth and responsive. The only obstacle is his mind. Movements aren't as instantaneous as his body parts, but he watches with fascination as he thinks about moving his right hand and it follows. It needs more effort, but he's enraptured with his arm's movement absorbing light, the void he'd exchanged for the lives of those he loved.

They run different dexterity tests, and the arm responds well to Six's urging, but it takes more of Six's energy to control it than any of them anticipated. He lets the arm go slack against his side to recover and the other three start chatting among themselves for greater efficiency. "It's perfect as it is," he interrupts. He's been meaning to tell Siete that for a while, hasn't he? He lets a small smile lift the corner of his lips. "I don't need anything more."

With his left hand, he holds up the prosthetic hanging at his side, turning its hand over. He finds six diamonds embedded in the palm, one by each finger and thumb, with the final one at the base, above his wrist. A thin, carved line connects them, catching the light when he tilts it at the right angle.

He looks up at Siete, eyes wide. Siete reaches to hold this hand with as much care as he once held the flesh and bone, so fast that Six can tell he's been waiting long to do so. He traces the pattern over and over, and Six can almost feel it, as if Nicholas' guidance implanted nerves back into the metal.

The intimacy of the action makes heat rise to his face. His eyes flicker behind Siete to Mahira and Nicholas, both of whom are grinning at the scene. "T-Thank you," he stutters out, cursing his tongue.

"Thanks for _your_ work," Nicholas says, giving him a thumbs up. "I heard about the whole time-bending thing from the others on the Grandcypher. Seems like what all of you went through was a real doozy."

"We do what we can." Six shifts his gaze to where Siete is still holding his hand.

Mahira extends her hand for him to shake once Siete lets him go. "That's more than many can offer." Already, his right hand is reacting easier than moments ago. He chuckles once, and she tilts her head. "What's so funny?"

"Some things never change," he says, more to himself than to her while shaking his head.

"Optimism is the best enabler! You might adjust faster to the arm than we expect."

He holds his right hand in Siete's left and squeezes as he waves the two of them goodbye, and the warmth of Siete's hand breathes life back into the cold metal.

* * *

He wears the prosthetic most days when he does chores or helps the others make food, even if there will always be a lag between his thoughts and the arm's movement. Some days, the ache in his shoulder is too great, or the phantom pain protests its usage; some days, the effort spent making it work is too much when he spirals into old habits and needs all of his energy to regain control. For those times, he leaves the arm in their room to catch the light, and it comforts him before he sleeps for the night.

Time passes, slipping through his grasp, and he allows it; the weather cools from the sweltering summer into the beginnings of autumn, and he remembers each passing day as he lives them in grateful company. He's lived a few months without his arm and with a new one, and the Eternals' routine is almost back to normal—which includes their habit of not turning on the heat until Terra complains.

Smiling to himself at the thought of her good-natured rumbling, he searches through their closet to find blankets and sweaters to keep him warm for his nap. He takes his time filing through everything he finds, and he smiles to himself when his hands graze on what he knew would be sitting there.

Never forgotten, but stowed out of sight, are the pristine outfits Korwa made for their wedding. Siete's out for a mission for at least the next few hours, and with an idea growing in his mind, he pushes everything aside to take his outfit from its hanger.

He lays it on their bed, careful not to wrinkle it. He glances behind him to his arm, resting on its stand by their desk, the same pattern etched upon it as the one on his right sleeve. He'd removed it in anticipation for his nap, but he keeps it there as he dresses himself in their wedding attire. He feels none of the nervousness as on the day they were wed, but his smile is as bright as it was back then, his heart light with the prospect of Siete returning home to him.

Six takes his time changing, and at the exact second that he stands to put the cape around his shoulders, fixing his hair, Siete walks through the doorway. He's back early, but just in time for Six to finish preparing.

Siete's uniform is covered in dirt, and his hair in a greater state of disarray than usual, but he takes one look at Six and his greetings falter, his tiredness slipping away. He closes the door behind him and sits on their bed, covering his mouth with his hands and staring.

Six walks up to him, clearing his throat from the sudden nervousness. "It only seemed fitting that if I proposed to you again, I should repeat my vows." It's worth it for Siete's face as he falls in love again, like Six does every day with him.

"You…" Siete trails off before he laughs, tears springing to his eye. He doesn't look away from him once. "You're really something. But it's good, because if we get to redo our vows, then I can say something awful about loving you if you're still bald."

"I have never once seen any Erune without hair."

Siete groans. "You're right. It would be more realistic for you to put it in your vows instead, loving me until I'm bald. I'm already getting there," he laments. Six doesn't stop his rambling this time, giving Siete the chance to make the jokes he wants to regain his bearings. Siete taps the middle of his forehead with a finger. "Hairline? Receding. Forehead? Huge."

Six lets out a silent laugh, turning his head away from Siete for a moment to hide his smile. He turns back, putting a hand on Siete's shoulder, leaning in to kiss his forehead. He keeps his lips there as he smiles, wide. "More space to claim as my own."

"Can't wait for you to kiss my bald ass head when we're, like, ninety."

The thought that either of them would live that long, let alone be able to spend that time beside each other, makes Six's heart skips a beat. It's too much to think of that possibility, all at once—so he moves down to kiss Siete's nose before smiling against his lips. "We can start with what we have now."

Siete sighs into the kiss, melting as his hands come up to rest on Six's arms. With the space between them closing, he murmurs, "You're right. Turns out I have everything I need already right now, but I'd love to talk about how much I love you some more."

With a knowing smile, Six takes a step back to extend his left hand for Siete to take. Siete's hand is warm in his as he stands in front of him, with a grin that no star in the sky could ever match, fussing with his hair. "At least let me change to match you."

"If you can," Six whispers, his smile lilting his words as he wipes a tear from Siete's cheek. "If it's anything like the first time, I already know to wait for you."

* * *

He's cheated not just death, but divine retribution.

There are days when he wakes up to the one he loves by his side, the one who loves him in equal measure, and he knows that through their trust in each other, they are both vulnerable and unshakable. There are days when he wakes up to an empty bed, but there will always be a letter for him from wherever the one he loves has gone, filled with updates and plans and a scribbled _I love you_ as easy as breathing.

His past is not inescapable. He has met with death twice, and now, he has almost closed the distance between the afterlife and his living world until he can the ghosts of Karm breathe down his neck during his nightmares. He wakes from those times thinking, _I should have died back then_. In those nightmares, he sees the younger version of him from his first death, the child that stared up with inverted colours save for red blood on his hands and his face. He knew without confirming that if he were ever to turn his head from that child, he would see everyone he had murdered at Karm.

He cannot know what faces they would wear. He would think them full of scorn, their bloodied hands prepared to drag him to hell. But now, when he wakes and finds Siete's arm around his and holding him close, he thinks their faces would be blank, remorseful, and weighed with the sin of mortal life with all the mistakes it entailed. Whatever he may find, he's ready to stand up and face them, but he doesn't want to. Not yet.

Each morning, the sunrise creeps in through the window, lightening the night for the stars to fade until the only thing that remains when the sky turns blue is a single, stubborn point. The dawn paints orange over the morning aches of his shoulder, his prosthetic arm in the corner, the seven starbursts against his chest.

It was once his greatest fear to love as he did and still does, for he could have it ripped away from him and leave him as less than nothing. Every nightmare of his became reality, and he persevered through immense loss.

"Six?"

He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head at Siete behind him. His ears brush Siete's jaw, and Siete's arms tighten around his waist.

Each morning, a glow falls upon the man laying next to him who will want to sleep in if he finds him awake, without a doubt. The man next to him insists he never snores, despite proof stating otherwise. The man next to him always seeks his warmth, conscious or not, in the belief that he will reciprocate.

With this man by his side, he remembered what he had lost, and he continued living so he could become something greater than his shattered hopes—and not a single second of it he could have done alone.

"You're thinking so loud this morning. What's up?" Siete sounds more awake with every word he says.

He smiles to himself—and then realizes he shouldn't keep it from Siete. He turns so they're facing each other. "It's not so important that I can't stay with you for a while longer."

Each morning, he starts another day where he is alive to continue forward from his history. He knows that even if he loses everything again, his friends and loved ones will give parts of him back until he is whole once more.

So, like the rays of the early morning sun caressing his skin with warmth, he brushes Siete's hair out of his sleepy face, kisses his lips, and pulls the covers around his love to sleep under the light blue sky once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we made it to the end of _the universe in your hands_! the main stories are done, so i'm marking the series complete, but there may be another fic as a collection of deleted scenes and such.  
> i'll keep this ending note short and sweet, even though i'll never have enough words to show how deep my appreciation goes: thank you for reading this series through to the end. 
> 
> for much more detailed notes about writing all three of the fics in this series - especially _from the lower depths_ , a lot really went into this fic - [i did a writeup over at my journal](https://behindmoon.dreamwidth.org/22813.html)!
> 
> come yell at me in the comments, i'd love to hear it! or over at my [twitter](https://twitter.com/discoprince).  
> thank you again, and have an excellent day!


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